


Guild Hidden In The Leaves

by Animemaniac1010



Series: The Fairies and Ninjas [1]
Category: Fairy Tail, Naruto
Genre: Everyone Needs A Hug, Grade A parenting Ivan, Hizashi tries to be good dad, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Jiraiya tries to dad, Multi, They will get one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2020-12-07 22:04:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20983127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Animemaniac1010/pseuds/Animemaniac1010
Summary: For want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost, for want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the message was lost, for want of a message the battle was lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was lost and all for the want of a horseshoe nail. Well multiple nails were lost, but the Sage of Six paths wasn't going to let a kingdom fall just because there was a couple of lost nails. So he found a couple new ones, lucky for him Edolas destablized the areas between dimensions well enough he could grab a few people that could fit the roles, oh that's where Ashura and Indra's reincarnations went. Long summary short, Fairy Tail characters are transported to the Elemental nations to fill in roles of key players. They have no memories of being in Fairy Tail, or do they?Bad Summary I swear the story is better.





	1. Dimension, Graduation, and Weapons oh my

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or its characters **

"Normal speech"

"_Normal thought_"

"**Demonic speech/extremely pissed off Tsunade**"

"**Demonic thought**"

"Jutsu/technique"

"_Written work"_

_Adult Subconscious_

_/Flashback speech/_

* * *

Night had fallen a couple of hours ago in the city of Magnolia. The streets are only barely lit except for the light post. The streets are deserted except for a blond-haired man with a lightning-shaped scar was walking at a calm pace.

The blond-haired man suddenly stops walking, "Whoever's there come out now," for a couple of seconds nothing a man appears from thin air, though the blond-haired man makes no reaction to the sudden appearance.

The man was dressed strangely and had what looked like red-eye in the middle of his forehead and horns. His normal eyes were purple and instead of having a pupil it had rings.

"You certainly explain a lot of things, Laxus Dreyer." The unknown man tells Laxus, who just turns around and gives the man a raised eyebrow.

Laxus doesn't react to the man's appearance but rather his question, giving the man a raised eyebrow. "What do you mean by that?" Laxus questions carefully, almost afraid of the answer.

The man just brushes off the question, "we have more important things to talk about than that young man" he briskly walks up to Laxus, who in response starts sparking with lightning. "Well that explains even more" the man cheerfully exclaims, caught off guard Laxus stops.

"Now young man, I've come to you at this time to ask something of you." Laxus glares suspiciously at him.

"Then why didn't you just put in a guild request?"

The man shakes his head, "I have a limited time here Dreyer and you are not the only one I need, many will be needed for this task." Laxus was visibly unsettled by the man's words. "Please, my Childrens' fates are at stake and I can't help them."

Laxus shakes, before taking a deep breath "If you're lying I will find you. What do you want me to do?"

"Thank you," the man gratefully tells Laxus, "What I need you to do is go through a portal that I will make in a minute."

Laxus takes a few steps back in surprise as his eyes widen and hold his hand out placating, "Wait a minute, what's going to happen to me if I do that, how will I get back?"

"Your first question will take too long to explain, and I will bring all of you back when everything is done. Time will not act the same here while you are gone, so do not worry about those you leave behind." The man explains to Laxus calmly, as if what he was saying wasn't strange, perhaps it wasn't to him.

Laxus looks off into the direction of a very special place in Magnolia, "Not much time will pass?" Laxus questions the man, not looking away from his home.

"Correct"

"You're asking me for help because you're children need help. Why can't you help?" Laxus questions.

"I'm dead; I can only interact with the physical world so much if I could help them more believe me I would." The old man sounded resigned, Laxus was reminded of gramps.

Laxus turns away from the guildhall, quietly muttering "sorry gramps" almost too quietly for anyone to hear.

A portal appears in front of Laxus, the portal was making no noise but plenty of light. "Just step right through here Laxus," he walks into the portal, not hearing the man tell him "thank you".

* * *

"_I can believe how slow these guys are," _Laxus thinks to himself as he runs away from the adults chasing him. He knew the graduation exams were coming up soon, but he couldn't stand class. Most of the other kids either couldn't stand him, he couldn't stand them, they were Bickslow, or he felt like he was forgetting something important whenever he was near them.

It didn't help that Mizuki sensei seemed to hate his guts, he really only goes for Bickslow and Iruka sensei, even though the later was always yelling at him for his antics. Really the only interesting thing to learn was the Justu and they only taught them three. One of which he couldn't do to save his life. Really clone Justu will be the end of him.

_ Ha, I was the same. Gramps had to sit me down for hours for me to learn stuff. Shame you have to deal with the lacrama side effects. Honestly, I have no idea why it's like this once a year. Ugh, I swear Dragneel didn't have to deal with that. _

Laxus manages to ditch them with a cloak of invisibility technique after his pursuers are gone. He puts down the cloak and chuckles. "That was too easy."

"Really Laxus?" Boomed from behind Laxus, having him jump almost a foot in the air. He turns around to Iruka sensei.

"Iruka sensei! What are you doing here?"

Iruka became more livid with him, "no what are you doing Laxus? You're supposed to be in class" Laxus refuses to look at Iruka, who's eyes soften. "That time of year?"

Laxus nods, "Why is it always this time of year?" Iruka rubs Laxus's back.

"Come on Laxus, you know you can ask for help," Iruka tells him as he walks with Laxus back to the academy.

"Mizuki sensei told me that you can get in trouble if you give me special treatment," He tells Iruka, walking next to the school teacher.

"He said what?"

"Uhh."

"Laxus, do you remember the Inuzuka clan," Iruka asks Laxus.

Laxus nods, "They work with dogs and they have an enhanced sense along with a series of different clan techniques and Jutsu."

Iruka nods "your senses, like an Inuzuka, are sensitive, while yours grow more sensitive this time of year, and we don't know why, we know they do," he stops and crouches to look Laxus in the eye, "and to accommodate that we have exceptions."

"Oh" Laxus looks mystified and Iruka gestures to start walking again.

"And Laxus" Iruka adds, as the academy comes into their view. Laxus looks up at Iruka, "thanks for telling me that thing with Mizuki, I'll be sure to talk with him about it."

Laxus blinks his eyes a couple of times before smiling up at Iruka, "Ok."

"I am trying Iruka sensei"

"I know you are Laxus"

The duo walk to the classroom and Iruka tells Laxus to sit in his seat. "Alright in preparation for the exams tomorrow we're studying the textbook today.

Everyone groans.

* * *

Laxus's turn was coming up, he got most of the written exam, Iruka sensei's last day study session with the textbook helped, and did okay in the Taijutsu exam. He hoping that using up most of his chakra before the Ninjutsu exam will help with the clone Jutsu

Evergreen and Freed went and seem happy, well, Evergreen was happy. Freed was being Freed. Finally, it's Laxus's turn for the ninjutsu exam, and he is worried even with the reassuring words of Bickslow. Laxus walks in front of Iruka sensei in the exam room.

"Alright Laxus, your turn"

"Transformation Jutsu!"

Poof, a puff of smoke appears, and out walks a man around 4 ft, with white hair, black eyes, a strange staff, and a strange jacket.

_ How much are you getting from me if you know what Gramps looks like? _

"Very good Laxus," Iruka tells the transformed boy as Mizuki also congratulates him, "but who did you transform into?"

Laxus transforms back into normal, but appears in deep concentration, "I don't know, he just seems really familiar and I feel like I should know him," his eyes convey his distress, "but I don't and something tells me that's not good."

"Laxus remind me to talk with you about this after the exams."

"Am I in trouble again?"

_ You didn't do anything wrong kid _

Sigh, "No Laxus, you're not in trouble. But it's time for the replacement technique, you ready?"

"Yep, Transportation Jutsu!"

Laxus disappears leaving a log in his place. Mizuki and Iruka look towards the ones to the side and Laxus isn't there. Mizuki chuckles, "Well he did use the correct technique correctly just not on the intended target."

A knock on the window reveals an embarrassed Laxus, "I used too much chakra."

_ No worries kid, I'm sure it happens all the time. _

Iruka and Mizuki let him inside. "Alright, Laxus you know the last technique" Iruka tells the despairing boy _"I know you can do it."_

Laxus takes a big breath, "Clone Jutsu!"

A puff of smoke appeared to the left of Laxus, and a pale imitation of the boy appeared on the floor. Laxus looks down, as Mizuki and Iruka look at the failed clone.

"Jeez Laxus, what did you do?" Iruka asks the put off academy student.

Laxus throws up his hands, "I don't know! I tried to put the smallest amount of chakra into the clone and this happens," Iruka and Mizuki share a look but turn their attention back to Laxus as he continues, "one time I thought I wasn't putting enough chakra so I added a ton, and it worked for 30 seconds and then it blew up!"

"Can you show us the second one" Mizuki suggest to Laxus after the boy's rant.

Iruka gives Mizuki the Big Head Jutsu "Mizuki NO!" he then goes back to normal and coughs, "Uh Laxus, I'm sorry but we can't graduate you at this moment but after the testing is done can you wait here."

Laxus walks back into the classroom, meeting Bickslow as he walks in. "Hey Laxus how did-" Bickslow calls out as he walks over only to stop mid-sentence when he saw no headband. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault Bicks," Laxus tells really his only friend that's his age, "It's mine, now don't worry about me." He smiles at his friend, "it's your turn soon."

Everyone has finished testing and are outside celebrating with their families, everyone except for Laxus, who's sitting by himself on the swing outside the academy. Watching the families congratulate successful graduates.

_ Ugh, this is familiar, why can't I put my finger on it? _

He also notices some of the people looking at him and overhears them talk about how he deserved to fail.

A shadow falls over Laxus and he looks up to see Mizuki sensei, Laxus's nose scrunches as a smell of a rotten snake briefly comes from Mizuki before it disappears. "Hey Laxus, do you want to talk?"

"Sure, Mizuki sensei."

Laxus notices Bickslow and his brother Shin talking. They notice he's with Mizuki and Bickslow mouths out, "Do you want us to do something?"

_ I wouldn't, he might act irrationally if confronted. _

He makes a quick glance at Mizuki, before mouthing back "No, but if Iruka sensei asks, I'm okay." He sees them quickly nod at him before redirecting his attention to the academy teacher.

They reach their destination faster than Laxus expects, Mizuki starts to explain "Iruka sensei is tough but he means well."

Laxus doesn't doubt that.

All of a sudden he feels like something is burning in his eye as he hears a man cackle about how he will be stronger after this.

_ Whoops sorry, you weren't supposed to see that. _

Laxus blinks and it's gone, _"what was that?" _he quickly brings his attention back to Mizuki, "He wants you to be strong with all his heart" Laxus looks down, "He's like you, you know. No parents or family"

"I—" Laxus voice breaks before he continues, "—I really wanted to graduate this year"

Mizuki leans his head back, as he gives a short laugh, "then I guess I have to tell you." Laxus glances at Mizuki, his eyes filled with curiosity "It's a secret but I'm going to let you in on it."

_ That seems too good to be true. _

"_A secret?"_

"All you need to do is take a scroll from the Hokage and learn one of the Jutsus in it, it's green with a large white stripe in the middle and it's almost as big as you. It's found in the Hokage's office. Then you'll need to learn one of the Jutsus" Mizuki explains to Laxus.

Laxus nods, "I'll be able to do that no problem."

"Good luck," Mizuki gives him a bolstering smile.

_ Please tell me you're not actually considering this? _

Laxus jumps down to the street and ponders on whether to head to Iruka like he had asked or to the Hokage's office.

_ Go to the damn Hokage! This is not the road to go down, I know this from personal experience. _

"Laxus!" Well, that answers that question.

He turns to see Iruka sensei briskly walking towards him with a worried look on his face that morphs into relief once he catches sight of Laxus.

"Hey, Iruka sensei what's u—" Iruka engulfs Laxus in a hug and picks him up. "Iruka sensei?" Laxus turns his head towards the teacher who is carrying him towards the Hokages residence.

Laxus tries to gain the attention of Iruka, "Uh, Iruka sensei why are we heading towards the Hokage's residence?" Iruka glances at where Laxus had just come from.

"Sorry, Laxus" Iruka apologize though he makes no move to put him down, "the Hokage and I talked and we have an idea."

Laxus makes a surprised sound, "what did you two talk about?"

Iruka chuckles, "Well, you'll just to find out when we get there Laxus," he laughs at Laxus's dismayed look. "Alright, honestly we can't talk about it in public." Before the duo can converse more, they arrive at the Hokage's residence and quickly make their way to the Hokage's office.

"Laxus, Iruka I was wondering when you two would get here" the elderly Hokage calls out when they enter. Iruka puts Laxus down and nods towards the Hokage. Hiruzen activates the privacy seals.

Laxus looks at the two adults, "so what's going on?"

"We have an idea" Hiruzen pulls out a green scroll with a large white stripe in the middle and it's also as big as he is. "There's a Jutsu that we think you can use to replace the normal clone Jutsu."

Laxus eyes widen before narrowing, "Is that scroll important?"

The two adults glance at each other confused at Laxus reactions, Hiruzen nods, "It's the Forbidden Scroll of Sealing, it contains forbidden secrets know only to our village. If our theory is correct the first Jutsu in the scroll, the Shadow Clone Jutsu should be fine for you."

_ Holy shit that's sad. He needed a kid to do his dirty work. _

"_Oh, that's not good"_, Laxus considers the best way to tell them that Mizuki had just asked him to steal the scroll.

_ Gently, that's his best friend. Well, seems like it was one-sided, but still, betray stings. _

"So, how would you react if I told you Mizuki sensei had told me that I could graduate if I stole that scroll and learned one of the Jutsus." He watched as the looks on Iruka's face turned from confused to shocked and disbelieving and Hiruzen's turned from confused to enrage.

_Not the way I would have done it but you did pretty well._

"Thank you for letting us know about this Laxus" Hiruzen thanks Laxus as he consoles Iruka, "Iruka I know Mizuki is your friend, but we need to investigate him for this. Please help Laxus with the Shadow Clone Jutsu," Iruka nods dully and Hiruzen leaves the room.

Laxus tries to ask Iruka if he's okay, but the words won't come out. "It's not your fault Laxus," Laxus jumps as the Chunin suddenly speaks. "Mizuki choices are his own, now let's get you graduated."

Laxus gives him a big grin as they start looking over the Jutsu.

_ Hey, are those spells?_

* * *

T&I 1 hour later

Hiruzen and Kakashi are watching Ibiki interrogate Mizuki.

"I'm glad you were able to help Kakashi," Hiruzen tells the one-eyed Jounin, as Ibiki works his magic.

Kakashi rolls his eye, "it wasn't too much trouble Lord Hokage; we knocked him out before he even realized we were there."

"Regardless, good work." Hiruzen rebukes, before shaking his head. "I can't imagine the amount of damage Mizuki could have unleashed had Laxus actually fallen for his ploy. Especially had we not talked to him afterward"

This gains Kakashi's attention _"I suddenly feel as if I should have watched Laxus a little better,"_ "speaking of which, why did you decide to talk to Laxus about The Forbidden Scroll of Seal?"

"_We should have had Kakashi watch him longer." _Hiruzen thinks as strokes his beard, "Iruka and I talked, Laxus had made a comment about the clone Jutsu so we decided to test a theory?"

"Oh," Kakashi says, "if I may ask Lord Hokage, what theory?"

Hiruzen blew out some smoke from his pipe, "due to Laxus's situation, he has a lot more chakra than most shinobi. It could be possible that the reason he can't do the clone Jutsu is that the smallest amount of chakra he can output is equal to the most chakra some genin can output. Therefore, it would only be fair to him to give him a Jutsu he can actually use."

Kakashi hums, "What is it Kakashi?" Hiruzen asks.

"I doubt even with the highest level of chakra control he could use that Jutsu at a small scale" Kakashi jokes.

Hiruzen purses his lips, "Apparently he turned the clone Jutsu into an exploding clone Jutsu"

Kakashi's good eye widens when he whips his head to the Hokage, "I'm sorry what?" _"Laxus what did you do?"_

"He reversed engineered an exploding clone Jutsu by overloading a clone Jutsu into one clone to the point it exploded," Hirizen tells the Jonin.

Kakashi puts his head in his hands and shakes his head, "It's a really good thing that Danzo never got Laxus, who knows what would have happened to him."

"Indeed" Hiruzen nods and then turns to leave "Don't forget the Jounin meeting coming up, you can't be late" He gives the cyclops Jounin a pointed glare.

"Hai, Hai"

* * *

The Hokage Office 40 Minutes Ago

* * *

"Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Laxus produces a perfect clone; both give Iruka a dual grin. "Did you see that Iruka sensei? I made a perfect clone!" The original Laxus calls out to the proud Chunin.

"_I knew you could do it." _He nods and walks over to Laxus, "alright Laxus close your eyes. I have a surprise for you." Laxus looks confused but closes his eyes anyway.

"What's the supri—" Laxus feels a fabric go on his forehead and feels himself grow excited, "Iruka sensei?"

Laxus opens his eyes when Iruka sensei steps away, "Congratulations Laxus, you graduated!" The next thing Iruka knew he was being tackled by an enthusiastic blond shinobi.

"Iruka sensei!" Laxus calls out in joy, hugging the Chunin even tighter.

The door opens slightly Laxus and Iruka imminently notice and turn their attention to it, a young boy with dark purple hair and black eyes charges in with a shuriken in hand, Laxus also notices he wearing a lame helmet and a scarf. "Old—" the boy stops mid-sentence and looks around, "where's the old man?"

"The Hokage is somewhere you're not allowed to go Romeo" Iruka answers the young child while Laxus walks up to him, and taps the helmet a couple of times with his knuckles. "Laxus what are you doing?" Iruka asks the blond.

Laxus looks over at the teacher with a serious face, "testing the lame helmet thing he's wearing on his head. It wouldn't even protect him from a half-decent punch."

"Says the ninja wearing orange!" Romeo retorts to defend his fashion choices.

Laxus scowls at the child, "Hey, the civil shop keepers won't sell me anything else and I can't go into shinobi stores without an adult."

Iruka and Romeo share a look at this and then turn to Laxus, "When were you going to tell me about this?"

"You never asked" Laxus answered confused, was he supposed to tell people about that? He knew that he was supposed to tell Dog and Dolphin but they haven't visited in a while.

At least Weasel told him that he and Crow can't see him anymore before they stopped.

Iruka takes a deep breath before screaming into his hands worrying the children in the room, before regaining his composure. "Laxus I'm going to take you shopping for normal clothes, Romeo," the boy turns to the adult, "would you like to come along, we can get you some proper shinobi clothing." The boys smile at Iruka and nod in unison.

Meanwhile

"HHONORABLEGRANDSON WHERE ARE YOU?" was heard throughout the village.

W hen the trio goes into a store owned by a retired shinobi Laxus goes ahead to browse the outfits, Iruka holds Romeo back to talk with him and turns to the owner. "It's okay if they're here, right?"

The man just smiles and nods, "Yeah" he turns to look at Laxus, "I am sorry I couldn't let him shop here before, but I would be closed down. Civilian counsel rules." Iruka nods, right there was a law against selling shinobi tools to underage children and they tend to butt heads with shinobi because it's inconvenient to academy students who are orphans. "Oh, sorry I was being rude, my name Kisho my adopted daughter Levy went to the academy last year."

"Oh yeah, I remember her. She was really feisty. Doesn't she want to become some kind of powerful kunoichi." Iruka comments, remembering the academy.

Kisho nods and smiles in pride, "Yep, my little girl is all grown up and training with her team. I tell you she can have the strangest of likes, she loves books and weapons but books about weapons are nothing compared to romance novels. Not that she'll ever confess on liking them."

Iruka laughs, that fits the bluenent he remembered. "Romeo" he finally brings his attention back to the young boy, "I actually have some recommendations for you," he points Romeo's scarf, "you can have a scarf but it's too long for you right now. It needs to be shorter so you don't trip."

Romeo looks slightly put out until Kisho looks through some boxes behind the counter and finds a smaller scarf with a scale pattern. Romeo eyes it eagerly, Kisho hands it to him and the boy eagerly runs to the back to look at himself in the mirror with the scarf.

"I'm going to owe you so much money by the end of this," Iruka tells Kisho who laughs light-heartedly.

He then points to the sitting area in the room where a well-known Jounin with silver hair is sitting on one of the chairs. "Are you sure that your friend there isn't going to help."

"Him? Absolutely not." Iruka tells him with absolutely no hesitation.

A groan from the man he stands up and walks over to Iruka and bumps into him playfully. "You're so cruel Iruka, you have such a low opinion of me."

"It's a fact not an opinion Kakashi. I know you, and you would most defiantly give the check to someone else if you could." Iruka retorts light-heartedly, he vaguely notices that there are voices near where Laxus and Romeo are checking out weapons.

Kisho is chuckling under his breath as he watches the Jounin and Chunin good-naturedly argue. _"Just like an old married couple" _Kisho goes to the back to check on the kids, he notices a ninja look at Laxus with disgust and moves between the ninja and the kids. "Everything going well kids?"

Romeo nods excitedly looking at the shuriken and kunai, while Laxus looked like he was in deep thought at the staves. Kisho watches amused as the boy looks over the staves. He barely noticed the genin stiffen.

Kisho moves to look at Laxus's face; his face was pale making his scar stand out more. His eyes were glassed over and he was breathing slowly. It was as if he was under a Genjutsu. Then out of nowhere tears start flowing from his eyes, but his expression doesn't change what so ever.

"Iruka! Kakashi! Get back here, there's something wrong with Laxus." Kisho yells as Romeo asks Laxus what's wrong.

The boy doesn't even twitch at what's happening around him. _"What the hell happened to the kid?"_

"Laxus!" Iruka calls out worriedly, the boy twitches and Kisho takes this as a good sign. The teacher tries to comfort the genin and ask him what's wrong. He feels his heart stop as the boy collapses into the Chunin's arms.

"Laxus!" The boy is silent for a heart-stopping moment before startling awake, sobbing and taking a large breath as if he was holding his breath.

Laxus's keeps crying but is slowly calming down; Kakashi escorts the other shinobi that was watching the entire time as Iruka comforts Laxus. "Why do I feel like something is wrong Iruka sensei?"

"I don't know Laxus but its okay. You're going to be okay. Kisho what happened?"

"I don't know, Laxus was just looking at the staffs when he suddenly froze like he was under a Genjutsu, that's when I called for you and Kakashi," Kisho tells the Chunin as he looks at the staves trying to figure out which one it was.

Iruka glances at the staffs and blinks as he sees a familiar one, he points to it. "He transformed into someone he said was familiar and he had that staff."

"His grandfather has one like that." Romeo suddenly says, but he sounded possessed. Kisho whips his head to Romeo whose face is blank for a moment before blinking and looking confused. "What did I just say?"

Kisho and Iruka exchange a glance between each other, Iruka will keep that in mind, wait Laxus has a Grandfather? Wait the man Laxus transformed into was his grandfather. How did Romeo know that? Why didn't Laxus know that?

"Nothing important." Iruka lies, figuring that was a mystery for another time and that Romeo didn't need to worry about it right now.

"Wait, Romeo said something just now?" Laxus asked confused, did he not hear what Romeo just said?

Iruka messes with Laxus's hair "Don't worry about it. Now have you decided on any good clothes?" Laxus's face lights up as he leads Iruka to the rack of shinobi wear. He found a black long-sleeved shinobi gear Jacket and a dark purple shinobi shirt that also had armor, and black pants somewhat similar to Anbu black ops. He glances at the price and is surprised to see the outfit only costs 20000 Ryo.

"Hey, Kisho! Is this right?" Kisho walks over, where was he anyway?

Kisho looked amused, "it's right" He looked over at Laxus and smiles kindly, "In fact, I'll give you a 20% discount if you buy 3." Laxus looked shocked, Iruka gives Kisho a thankful look as he gathers three of the outfits.

"Wait, he's actually giving us a discount, he's not upping the price." Laxus's reaction didn't surprise Iruka, it just made him sad.

Iruka messes with Laxus's hair and walks up to the checkout with the clothes. "How much do we owe you?"

"48000 Ryo" Iruka nods and starts handing over the money.

Laxus tries to tell Iruka that he can pay for it but Iruka just shakes his head, "Think of it as a graduation gift." Laxus looked touched and gave Iruka a small smile. Kakashi comes up and also purchases a genin level weapons kit.

Iruka notices Laxus study Kakashi, but doesn't think anything of it until a question comes from Laxus, "Dog?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here’s the end of this chapter, does it count as a cliffhanger, maybe. Do I care, no. Why? Because this was a perfect place to stop. Now for those of you who don’t know this is a rewrite of one of my past stories that I have posted on Wattpad and fanfiction.net. I am not posting on either of those sites. Whether that will change in the future I don’t know. Now this is just because I know it’s not that obvious but the adult subconscious is the Laxus from the beginning, I will state it later but he has been with Kurama for the last thirteen years. This will be important later. While Laxus cannot hear his adult self he can ‘hear’ him or rather have an impression. As for why he ditched class just to get into trouble? If you couldn’t tell in the story his senses are actually being sharpened once a year due to the lacrama. It’s meant to be a gradual change but because he’s a second-generation dragon slayer it increases by a lot all in a small period of time. He ditched class because it would have been too much sensory information otherwise. What Iruka did when he grabbed Laxus was to decrease the sensory by eliminating the auditory and visual stimuli. Now just to be clear while Laxus is grateful for Iruka’s kindness he’s also planning on paying Iruka sensei back, the easiest way is by pickpocketing.


	2. A Dog in Headlights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Filling in the cast, other Fairy Tail members are appearing as a Naruto character. With their own little spin of course. Memories never stay hidden well and of course Mira is everyone's favorite she-devil and I would never change that.
> 
> Anyway we'll have a sassy and protective Freed, a good friend Bickslow, and a confused but supportive Evergreen, she the normal one. Answers from the last chapter are found but more questions are formed in its place.

“Dog?”

Kakashi’s eye widened and Iruka barely stifles the urge to snort. Leave it to Laxus to remember the old dog after so many years. _“What gave him away?”_

Iruka watches in amazement, Kakashi Hatake learner of a thousand Jutsu, student of the Fourth Hokage is at a loss for words.

It was glorious.

What was less glorious was how upset and vulnerable Laxus’s expression was. After the incident in the forest, he usually didn’t let others see how vulnerable he was.

Kakashi doesn’t respond other than handing him the weapons kit. He quietly tells Laxus “I’ll see you again soon Laxus. I’ll explain then.”

“Okay”

Kakashi then leaves in a Shunshin and Iruka groans silently. “Iruka sensei am I going to learn how to do that now that I have graduated?” Laxus looked hopeful that he doesn’t need side along Shunshins anymore as they exit the shop with Romeo who was wearing the scarf Iruka had bought the scarf for him.

“I’m sure if your genin sensei is who I think it is then you’ll have to bug him to teach you it.” Iruka answers Laxus, _“damn it Kakashi you are not being subtle whatsoever” _Iruka mentally sighs_ “Well as long as he also chooses Bickslow as well we should be fine.”_

If Iruka didn’t know better he would swear that they were siblings or something. More often than not they were together, and if you were to insult one within the range of the other prepare for a beat down.

The loyalty wasn’t surprising; he would hate to see what would have happened to Bickslow if Laxus didn’t find him.

* * *

In an alternate reality a pale man drawing suddenly sneezes.

* * *

The point stands that Laxus and Bickslow shouldn’t be separated for their own good. They seemed to balance each other out. Laxus is defiantly more careful around Bickslow and Bickslow seems more motivated.

And Kakashi Hatake better know this or Iruka is going to give him words that are not appropriate for his workspace. _“Wait he would find that amusing.”_

Iruka feels like he’s forgetting something, then he sees the Hokage. “Iruka you could have at least left a note or somethi— Romeo?”

“Hi, Old man. Look at what Iruka sensei got me. ” The Hokage sighs and Romeo started to show off his new scarf. “Do you like it?”

“I think it suits you, Romeo.” The Hokage tells his Grandson with an amused grin. “However, I was under the impression that you were with Ebisu.” Iruka notices belatedly that said man was behind the Hokage.

Romeo shrugs, “He was boring so I ditched him—” a dismayed cry interrupted him, “then I went to your office and instead of you there was Laxus and Iruka sensei. I guess they didn’t want to leave me alone or something because they took me with them to the store.”

_“Talk about an oversimplification”_ Iruka watches the Hokage hold back a chuckle, “Ebisu can you take Romeo back home, I have somethings I need to talk with Laxus and Iruka.”

“Ugh, side-along Shunshin” The Romeo and Laxus groan in harmony, having many occasions of it being used on them.

Ebisu walks over to Romeo and places a hand on his shoulder before they both disappear in a bunch of leaves. Laxus mutters something, “What is it Laxus?”

“He’s a closet perv.” Iruka both wanted to know why and how Laxus came to that conclusion but also didn’t want to know. “One of those weird adult books was sticking out one of his pockets. You know the ones—”

The Hokage was the one to interrupt Laxus; he spoke quickly “I believe he gets the point Laxus, now I will meet you two in my office.” Then he Shunshins away, leaving Iruka and Laxus alone in the street. _“Laxus, please don’t go telling people I read Jiraya’s books.”_ The old Hokage pleads in his mind.

“Shall we go?” Iruka asks, hoping Laxus would rather walk. He had a bad feeling that he knew what the Hokage needed to talk about.

Laxus rubs his scared eye before turning back to Iruka, _“I wonder if it irritates him”_ It wasn’t the first time he wondered about Laxus’s eye nor will it be the last. “Can we walk?”

“I think the Hokage can wait a couple of minutes.”

* * *

A Few Minutes Later

* * *

Iruka bought as much time as he could, he knew what was coming. Laxus could tell that something was up, but he didn’t push Iruka. He didn’t deserve Laxus. He knew Laxus was strong but this had the potential to destroy him.

Walking over to the Hokage’s office. He looked annoyed but fond, “I’m going to assume that you two walked.” They nod; the Hokage lifts up a wooden slab on his desk and puts his hand in the space. He then sighs, “We are in private and no one else will hear us” “_not including the Anbu Black opts” _“and there are many important things we need to talk about.”

“What’s going on old man?” Laxus asks the Hokage, who was like a grandfather to him.

_ He’d get along with gramps. _

Laxus had a feeling that he wasn’t going to like what he was going to hear.

The Hokage looked his aged as he sighed, this was the first time Laxus has seen him have a hard time with words. “I would first like to congratulate you on graduating Laxus. I knew you could do it. I just wish you told me about your trouble.” Laxus smiles and rubs the back of his neck. _“You’re so busy; I don’t want to make it worse.”_

_ I’d hate to see his reaction to the other stuff…or my bullshit. _

“I have something that I need to tell you, something that I have been keeping from you for years.” Laxus felt stabbed, “I do apologize to you about that, but I had and still do feel as it was for the best.”

“Why?”

The Hokage shakes his head, “I wanted to let you have a normal childhood” _Gramps tried that too, you both did you’re best though. Unfortunately, we both are very stubborn._ “I planned to tell you when you became a genin and here that day is.”

“Tell me what?” Laxus asks as he starts tapping his leg looking at the two adults in the room. He notices that Iruka had pulled two chairs over, and gestures for Laxus to sit.

The Hokage sighs, “Laxus I will need you to listen to me, I knew one day this would come. Tell me what do you know happened on the day the Nine-Tails.” He sounded sad and Laxus found himself worried about him, remembering that he’s actually rather old.

_ You don’t usually realize how old the people you love are. _

Laxus shrugs, “Just what everyone else knows, the Nine-Tails attacked us, the village was destroyed, a lot of people died, and the Fourth Hokage killed it at the cost of his own life.”

Iruka and the Hokage stay quiet and the dread Laxus feels in his stomach just got worse. The Hokage opens his mouth to say something but Iruka bets him to it. His voice was soft as he corrects Laxus, “You can’t kill a Tailed Beast Laxus; they’re made of chakra and would come back after a couple of years.”

“Then what happened? Why hasn’t it come back yet?” Laxus asks not understanding and dreading the answer. Was, was this why the villagers. Laxus vaguely notices that he’s shaking.

“You may have already started to guess.” The Hokage picks up where Iruka left off his voice just as soft, “But as the Fourth Hokage was unable to kill the Nine-Tails he had to make an executive decision. To seal it inside an infant child, the chakra of the Nine-Tails would be too powerful for anyone older than six months.”

Laxus couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. The words the Hokage said repeating in his mind, seal it inside an infant child. “I’m the Nine-Tails.” Laxus his voice was quiet and tight as the implications hit him.

_ “Ha, yeah no. We are not a demon. How would that conversation go? Hey, guys, I accepted a deal with an old man because he was worried about his kid and it turns out I’m a sucker for parents who actually give a shit about their families…Actually, gramps would probably be between proud and worried about my wellbeing. _

“No, you are Laxus Dreyar one of my freshly graduated students, who will get payback to those who he believes deserves it and a boy who is fiercely protective of those who care about.” Laxus watches Iruka touched and partially shocked as his teacher defends him with so much passion and venom. “You have worked hard to get where you are against the villages and their biased hatred; you and the Nine-Tails are completely different and anyone who says differently are morons.”

The Hokage nods in agreement with Iruka. “You are no more the Nine-Tails than I am; you are the Nine-Tails jailor, unfortunately as you have discovered the villagers do not realize this out of their own stupidity.” Laxus rubs the back of his neck as he takes a deep breath, trying to understand everything. _“I can’t believe I have that thing inside me.” _

_ Kid, I understand the sentiment, I really do. But he’s actually nice if you give him a chance. Though I might be saying that just because I have been stuck with the fluff ball for thirteen years.  _

“So, I have the Nine-Tails inside me is that what caused this?” Laxus gestures to his scared eye.

_ Ah, no er I was an idiot kid and … didn’t listen to Gramps.  _

The Hokage shook his head, “No, from what we can tell there’s a foreign object somewhere behind your eye—”

“What! There’s something behind my eye!” Laxus yelps as his eyes widen in shock as he proceeds to freak out.

_ Yeah, it’s a dragon slayer lacrama, not fun to get. _

Iruka sensei looked surprised and worried, while the Hokage looked like he expected Laxus to react like that. “Yes, we can’t figure out what it is. We would have to open you up, WHICH WE WON’T” the Hokage raises his voice at the end as Laxus starts to freak out again. “To figure it out. No one is going to open you up.”

“But why me?” Laxus asks Iruka looked at the Hokage.

_ Shitty luck, fate hates you, us? The old man who brought us here. Take your pick. _

“I can’t tell you.” The Hokage raises his hand to stop Laxus’s protest. “It’s not because of any personal reason. In fact, if it didn’t have to do with your body I wouldn’t tell you because the Nine-Tails is an S-Class secret. The reason why it was you is also an S-Class secret but I can tell you when you get to Jounin.”

_ Damn it you fluff ball, why won’t you tell me why! I know you know. _

Laxus looks down in dismay, but nods. “I get it, I-I don’t like it though.” Iruka rubs Laxus hair, and the Hokage watches Laxus sympathetically with his sad eyes that made Laxus miss someone he can’t remember.

_ Gramps, you miss Gramps. That might be why you accepted that so easily if it was me I would have fought it a bit more. _

“We’re assigning the teams tomorrow afternoon.

* * *

The Next Day

* * *

Laxus walks into the academy after he graduates, it wasn’t the first time. He helped Iruka sensei grab some stuff after the Mizuki incident, and it’s not like he wasn’t going to visit his favorite teacher. He gets to the classroom and sees most of the class except for Mira, Evergreen, and Sakura. Sakura was a civilian who was friends with the class she-devil and Evergreen but has now formed an imaginary rivalry with both them over Freed’s attention.

Mira is friends with Freed, which they can’t broadcast because of all of Freed’s fangirls. Freed is the last Uchiha, Laxus actually had to ask him how he was related. Apparently one of his grandparents was an Uchiha. So when Freed, like many others, mysteriously arrived in the middle of the night with a note that had their names, birthdays, and other stuff.

She also wants to actually be a Kunoichi and tries hard. That’s actually how she and Evergreen actually became friends, they argue all the time about different tactics though to the amusement to the rest of the class. They also talk about beauty but Laxus isn’t willing to touch that subject with a fifty-foot pole.

_ You have to give the Sage some credit; he was able to get everyone over here mostly safe. Afterward …not so much. Dammit, I swear my teammates always have the worse luck. Why does fate hate them so much? _

Laxus sits next to Freed; he figured he might as well piss off Haruno. Who knows maybe the She-devil won’t kick his ass. _“I hope not, Mira has a strong kick”_

_ Somethings never change. _

Laxus waves at Bickslow when he comes in and his friend gives him a shit-eating grin grabs a chair and sits next to him. “Oi, Laxus I thought you failed the graduation test.”

“Turns out that I am physically unable to do normal clones.” Laxus counters playfully ribbing his friend. “So, the old man taught me another Jutsu that fulfilled the last requirement I needed to graduate.”

“Nice!!!” Bickslow drags out the ending of the word as he gives Laxus thumbs up.

Freed who was quiet the entire time, turned out to be listening because he tells Laxus, “Congratulations, they should have figured you’re too stubborn to not graduate this year. Who knows you might actually catch up to me.”

_ Did, did Freed just give him a backhanded compliment. _

Laxus opens his mouth before closing it, “Was that a backhanded compliment?” Laxus genuinely asked he couldn’t tell if Freed was being cocky or just an ass.

“Laxus out of everyone here, you and Bickslow were the only ones who I enjoyed sparing with. Even with your horrible Taijutsu, you two were the most challenging in our class” Freed answers before he goes back to brooding.

Laxus and Bickslow glance at each other stunned before the ground started to shake. They both properly sit in their seats next to Freed and pretend to not notice the thankful look that he gives them.

“I got here first!” The trio of girls yells as they enter the classroom at once. The class bears them no mind and the girls argue. Evergreen is able to get out of the conversation and sit behind the group of boys.

“Laxus? What are you doing here?” Evergreen asks the blond. “Last I heard you failed.”

Laxus waves at Evergreen and gives a small smirk. “Turns out I physically cannot make a clone, so the old man gave me a workaround so I passed.”

“Really, I didn’t know that was an option. But shouldn’t you give the Hokage more respect? I mean he did help you out there.” Evergreen was surprised that he graduated, but not maliciously so.

Laxus shrugs and is about to tell her that if he cared he would have told Laxus to stop by now when all of the sudden a banshee shriek is heard. It sounded like, “BICKSLOW, LAXUS GET OUT OF MY WAY.” Now Bickslow was in the aisle seat, so he was right next to said pink-haired banshee. Bickslow has been training a long time to be a shinobi with his brother. So, it is a surprise to no one he has the reflexes of one.

So when a pink-haired banshee who’s also staring down at him screams at the top of her lungs at him out of nowhere, he’s going to punch her. In the face. Across the room. Right when Iruka sensei comes in. Knocking her out cold. Said academy teacher looks at the girl, looks at Bickslow’s shocked face, and sighs “Bickslow don’t make a habit of punching people randomly.” He then picks up the pinket and takes her to the nurse's office using a Shunshin. He then returns a minute later and resumes the lesson as nothing happened.

“As of today, you are all ninja. To get here you faced difficult trials and hardships but that’s nothing. What comes next will be far more difficult. Now you are genin first level ninjas all genin will be grouped into three-man squads. Each squad will be led by a Jounin, an elite ninja.” Laxus smiles as he glances at Bickslow they know there’s no way anyone would separate them.

_ You would work well with Ever and Freed too. The four of us are the best team in Fairy Tail after all. Too bad four-man squads aren’t a thing here. _

“We want each squad to have a balance of strengths and abilities, so that’s how we set them up. However, due to the number of graduates this year we have an extra person.” Laxus freezes and Bickslow starts hoping that he’ll still be with Laxus. “So, we have one group of four. But otherwise, that’s how we set that up”

Laxus and Bickslow breathe sighs of relief and then glare at Iruka sensei who just chuckles amused. _“Dammit, that wasn’t funny sensei.”_

_ The Thunder Legion will reign supreme. _

Somewhere a silver-haired Jounin had a feeling. Not a good or bad one. Just a feeling.

Laxus vaguely out until he hears Iruka sensei call out “Team Seven. Laxus Dreyar”, Laxus focuses intently on Iruka sensei_, “_Bickslow”

“Yes!” Laxus and Bickslow cry out simultaneously giving each other high-fives.

“Evergreen and Freed.”

_ I totally called it. _

The group of four glances at each other and figure it won’t kill them, all the while Iruka sensei continues to list off teams. “Team Eight. Lucy Hyuga Heartfillia, Elfman Inuzuka Strauss, Shino Aburame.”

“And finally Team Ten. Mira Yamanaka Strauss, Shikamaru Nara, and Chouji Akamichi”

Thunk, Mira’s head hits the desk, “Iruka sensei why am I on the team with two of the laziest people in our class.”

“Think of it as an extra challenge, you get to be the one who whips them into shape,” Laxus calls out before Iruka can respond.

_ Bad idea kid, she’s already pissed. Even I don’t tango with the she-devil if I can help it. _

Instead of getting angry, she looks intrigued “Thanks for the suggestion Laxus. It actually makes me feel a bit better.”

_ I now feel bad for those boys. _

The groups go out to a late lunch including Sakura’s team. Laxus manages to drag Freed over to where Bickslow got Evergreen. “So where do you two want to go to lunch?”

“There’s a pretty good BBQ place. We could go there.” Evergreen suggests.

Laxus rubs the back of his head before looking pleadingly at Bickslow, who rolls his eyes. “Is it the one near the hot springs? Because if so we can’t go. The guy hates Laxus’s guts and that’s one of the places he has never pranked.”

“No, this one’s near the Akamichi compound, they’re run by the Akamichi’s so if they give us trouble I can talk to Mira” Evergreen assures, the unspoken _“and they will regret it”_ was heard and not talked about.

They all walk together in mostly silence. Evergreen and Freed weren’t talking, but Bickslow and Laxus were talking about Shin. “He’s back in the hospital again. I thought he had another month.”

“So did we, it’s just a checkup though. Seems like they’re trying to figure out how to cure it.” Bickslow had a worried look on his face. _“I hope they find something.”_

Laxus lightly jabs Bickslow in the ribs, “So, why the hell did you punch Sakura. Not that she didn’t have it coming but that’s not really something we would expect from you.”

“Yeah, she startled me and I reacted. You know I don’t like it when people yell in my face.” Bickslow confesses as Evergreen and Freed watch him.

Before they can carry on the conversation they arrive at the BBQ place when they enter Laxus makes the decision to hide partially behind Bickslow and Freed. So that the server doesn’t see him.

“Mira!” Evergreen recognizes and waves at. Said girl notices her friend and waves them over.

Shikamaru rolls his eyes but doesn’t say anything. “You guys can sit over here if you want, Evergreen and Bickslow were able to squeeze in but Freed and Laxus had to grab chairs.

“Geez, I guess you guys are the exception to the rule huh, a four-man squad that must be special.” Mira starts the conversation and hopes to keep the ball rolling. _“She’s bored.”_

Evergreen just rolls her eyes at her friend, “We’ll find out won’t we, but I can’t believe you didn’t guess that this would happen. Everyone knows about the Ino-Shika-Cho. Even if you’re name doesn’t start with Ino you should have realized that being in a class with a Nara and Akamichi would have resulted in that.” _“Considering the personalities, Laxus would argue that it wasn’t the best idea.”_

“I know, but these two can be sooo, unmotivated at times. I just hoped they would have at least have some fire.” Mira tells Evergreen like her teammates aren’t there.

Thought to be fair they weren’t really paying attention. Shikamaru somehow fell asleep already and Chouji was chowing down on some chips. Just then the waiter came by “Alright my name is—” The man eyes land on Laxus and he already knows where this is heading. “I’m sorry you are going to have to leave young man.”

The man reaches to forcibly remove Laxus from his seat before the man could grab Laxus’s upper arm Freed speaks up in the coldest and most threatening voice any of them have heard from their classmates. “If you have a problem with my teammate please take it up with me. After all, he does reflect on me because we’re teammates.”

_ …Glad to see Freed hasn’t lost his ability to shut people up with words. _

_“Did Freed stick up for Laxus?” _The other genin look at Freed and the server in shock as the server impersonates a fish, “of course sir, what would you like?”

“Just get the table the special,” Mira tells the server coldly, the server looks slightly unnerved by the death stare he was receiving from said kunoichi. The server left muttering something about the Blooded Habanero reincarnated.

Shikamaru woke up in the commotion and was looking at Laxus with calculating eyes. “Laxus what just happened?”

“The civilians are usually asses to me, they're only a few places where, that, doesn’t happen,” Laxus states plainly like it was normal which for him it was. The others ignore the dead look in his eye. “Not that I’m not thankful or anything Freed, but why did you help me back there.”

Freed gave Laxus a look that translated to, _you’re being an idiot,_ “You two prevented Sakura from sitting next to me. I owed you two one and no one can say I don’t pay back debts.”

_ He means it; he will pay back all his debts. Even imaginary ones or ones you tell him aren’t debts and he can stop now.  _

Laxus had a feeling that was truer than he realized. But shrugged it off as the food arrived quickly.

“Huh, the food came faster than usual,” Mira comments to Evergreen as she starts grabbing some food and putting it on her plate.

Evergreen rolls her eyes and grabs some food and puts it on her plate, “That’s because the server made a commotion, they speed up our order to make up for it.”

“Don’t act like a know-it-all Ever,”

“Don’t act like a bitch Mira”

The boys at the table wisely decide to stay quiet and not interfere with the girl’s rivalry.

* * *

Back at the Academy

* * *

“What The Fuck is taking our teacher so long?” Laxus screams in frustration as they wait in the classroom hours after everyone else has left. Bickslow was wood carving tikis again, Freed was brooding, and Evergreen was sitting down contemplating her life choices. “That’s it! He deserves what’s coming to him.” Laxus starts pulling supplies out of his bag and then goes into some of Iruka sensei’s drawers.

“You really shouldn’t be going through Iruka sensei’s draw— Bickslow stop helping him.” Evergreen tries to dissuade Laxus from harassing their extremely late teacher. Bickslow, however, decides to help as he gets out some paints he uses for the tikis.

Laxus laughs mischievously as he grabs the last of the supplies for the prank. _“This is going to be fun.”_

* * *

Time Skip

* * *

_ “Now what do we have here?”_ Kakashi thinks as he spots the erasure in the door, _“Might as well let them have this so I can make them sweat.”_

Kakashi opens the door, fully prepared for an erasure hitting his head. He was not prepared for the neon paint and stink bomb that followed. _“This is what I get for underestimating the prankster king.”_

Laxus and Bickslow are laughing madly while Freed and Evergreen are trying to cover up their chuckles behind their hands. “And my first impression of you all is…that I hate you.”

Mistakes have been made because Laxus’s grin widened as he stomps his foot. Feathers, of course, he found feathers. Instead of sighing like he so desperately needed he instead tells them, “Meet me on the roof in 30 seconds.” before he Shunshins to the roof.

Laxus doesn’t stop smiling as he runs over to the window, opens it, and starts scaling the wall. The rest of the team quickly follow suit, you can’t be a ninja if they can’t climb. So, all of them have to be good at it.

Somehow Freed catches up to Laxus so they both jump off the fence at the same time. They are met with the no longer feathered but still slightly painted Jounin who is staring at them like they’re ridiculous. “Did you four just scale the building?”

_“No, we used Shunshin” _Laxus instead answers “Yes” like it’s the most obvious thing in the world as he sits down on the steps, Bickslow sitting right next to him. Freed sitting off to the far left and Evergreen plops down between Laxus and Freed.

“We’ll now that all of that is out of the way, we can start with introductions.” Everyone gives Kakashi a blank stare. “You know your name, likes, dislikes, hobbies, and dreams for the future.” They haven’t blinked. “How about I go first, my name is Kakashi Hatake, I have many likes and dislikes, hobbies…I have a lot of hobbies, as for my dreams for the future…I’m not telling you” _“all he told us is his name._

_ He reminds me of Gramp’s friend on the magic council. _

“You on the far right, your turn.” Kakashi points to Bickslow who sticks his tongue out.

“My name’s Bickslow, I like ghosts, my best friend Laxus, and tikis.” Laxus rolls his eyes; he’s obsessed with those things. “I dislike banshees, a certain man, and people who harass the ones close to me.” Bickslow looked serious for once. Bickslow never tells him about the man he’s talking about. “My hobbies are training, wood carving, going to haunted areas, and pranking people with Laxus. My dream for the future is finding a way to cure my older brother of his illness.”

Kakashi sensei nods, “I heard about Shin, I hope he gets better. You next Blondie”

Laxus gives him a deadpan stare, “My name is Laxus Dreyar, I like hanging out with Bickslow, pulling pranks, dragons, and music.” Laxus sees Evergreen mouth out the word dragons and chooses to ignore her. “I dislike those who judge people for things out of their control, people who try to hurt my precious people and going to haunted places without Bickslow. My hobbies include training, pranking people with Bickslow, and listening to music.”

The others look at Laxus confused as Bickslow elbows him, and then gives encouraging thumbs up. “I want to be Hokage. Yes, I know it’s unlikely that I will be Hokage but I want to help people and make the village a better place.”

_ I want to become the master of Fairy Tail, to make the guild better too. One of these days someone’s going to get hurt or worse killed as collateral because gramps won’t put his foot down. _

“That is a good reason to become Hokage” Kakashi sensei’s voice was thick, as if what Laxus said reminded him of something. “Your turn little miss.”

Evergreen doesn’t react to the jab, “Evergreen, I like fairies, nice dresses, and kicking perverts where it hurts.” The boys all wince. “I dislike perverts, Sakura, and people who think that kunoichis are weak. My hobbies are looking at fancy dresses, researching fairies, and trying makeup. My dream is to become a powerful Kunoichi.”

Everyone looks at the last remaining member of the group. “My name is Freed Uchiha Justine, I hate a lot of things and I don’t particularly like anything, what I have is not a dream because I will make it a reality I will kill a certain man.” Laxus stood up walked over the emo avenger and whacks him on the head.

“All of us have been acting like mostly normal people for this exchange Freed, stop being dramatic,” Laxus tells, no he orders the green-haired boy. “You aren’t even trying to make it subtle that you’re trying to mess with us either.”

Freed tries to have a poker face but it breaks and he starts to chuckle “Couldn’t you give me a moment?”

“I was under the impression that giving the bad first impression was my job, not yours.”

“Come on Laxus, like it’s hard. You do have that resting bitch face.”

“Damn it Bicks you’re supposed to be on my side.”

“I am on your side, but pissing people off is your specialty.”

Freed shoves Laxus towards Bickslow before restarting his introduction, “My Name is Freed Uchiha Justine, I like training, calligraphy, reading, and dramas if you couldn’t tell. I hate a certain man and fangirls. My hobbies include training, reading, and calligraphy. My dream for the future is finding out why a certain man did what he did.”

“Good” Kakashi tells them after Freed finishes,_ “They’re all more complex than their files suggest; that’s good. Looks like we have a promising group.”_ “You are each unique and each have your own ideas. Our first mission starts tomorrow.”

_ This is fishy, what’s he planning. _

“What kind of mission?” Laxus asks skeptical, he didn’t know why though.

_ Alright, how often do my emotions bleed through to you kid? _

“It’s a task the five of us will do together.”

_“He’s being evasive.”_ They all think. “What Is The Mission,” Laxus says each word individually.

“A survival exercise.”

A collective groan goes throughout the four genins.

“Aww, what!”

“Booo”

“We did plenty of those already; I thought we graduated not restarted”

Kakashi tries to stop the complaints, “This is not like your previous training.”

“Then exactly what kind of training is it then.” Freed asks, finally saying something.

Kakashi laughs and everyone except for Laxus and Bickslow were unnerved. “If you need help with evil laughter I’m sure the crazy snake lady in T&I can teach you.”

“When did you go to T&I?” Evergreen asks.

Laxus rubs the back of his head, Bickslow answers for him. “A drunk attacked him about a year ago, they had to get his testimony and instead of making him walk home in the middle of the night they let him stay.”

Laxus adds on without thinking “It was also because he was friends a child pedophile who was stalking me.” _“Wait did I ever tell him about that.”_

Bickslow whipped to face Laxus “What.” _“Oh shit, I forgot to tell him.”_

No one noticed the dark satisfaction emitted from Kakashi. Later in life Laxus looked into the situation and found out the pedophile was murder with a Chidori through the heart.

_ I was wondering when that would come up. Kakashi doesn’t look surprised, poor Evergreen and Freed they look horrified. _

“Er, I’ll tell you later?” Laxus offers.

Bickslow looked annoyed but decided not to push Laxus; then again he has seen Laxus jump off a building to avoid a conversation. “You better!”

“Strange preferences aside also as your sensei please tell me about that, I suppose I should tell you why it’s different. Though you won’t like it.” Everyone looks at Kakashi sensei, he ignores that Laxus looks grateful for the conversation switch. “Of the twenty-eight graduates who just came here, only nine will be accepted as a genin. The other nineteen will be weeded out and sent back to the academy.

In other words, it’s a make it or break it. Pass-Fail test and the chance that you’ll fail is at least sixty-six percent.”

The genin look shocked, Kakashi sensei continues, “See? Didn’t I tell you, you wouldn’t like it?”

The group groans and grumbles about the point of the other test. “That was to weed out the weaker ones, I decide whether you pass or fail. Be at the designated training spot at five am and bring your ninja gear.”

They all stare at Kakashi sensei as he dismisses them, “That’s it you’re dismissed. Oh, and tomorrow you better skip breakfast, or else you’ll puke.” Kakashi watches everyone but Laxus and Bickslow leave.

_“Hey, you’re the one who told me you would explain when you see me again. Dog”_ Laxus thinks as he starts to tap his foot expectantly.

_“Welp here we go” _Kakashi sensei sighs, “Bickslow can you please leave me and Laxus alone. I need to talk to him about something.”

“No” Kakashi sensei blinks at the stubborn boy. “If you think I’m leaving my friend alone with you—”

“Kakashi sensei is Dog, Bicks,” Laxus tells the purple-haired boy, who stops in the middle of his sentence. _“Of course Laxus told Bickslow about the Anbu black opts.”_

Bickslow looks at Laxus to Kakashi. “You are Dog.” Bickslow voice sounded dull like there was no emotion behind his words.

“Yes,” Kakashi confirms as a headache starts to form. “I should have known Laxus told you about that.”

Laxus sighs, “You really are a crappy liar Dog,” Laxus tells him quietly.

“Only to you Laxus, you always seem to see right through them.” Kakashi sensei tells him as he rubs Laxus’s hair. “So, I suppose both of you have questions.”

Bickslow and Laxus nod. “Why did you and Dolphin just up and leave?”

“The council thought my abilities would be better suited elsewhere, while Dolphin actually left the Anbu blacktops for a different occupation. Neither of us were allowed to tell or even had the chance.” Kakashi sensei explains.

“Fucking council,” Bickslow mutters, with Laxus and Kakashi sensei nodding in agreement. “Wait,” Bickslow says as he realizes something. “You aren’t planning on falling us are you?”

Kakashi sensei suddenly seems nervous while Laxus rolls his eyes. “Whatever do you mean?”

“You can’t fail Freed, the council will kill you.” Bickslow holds up one finger. “You won’t fail Laxus, you know how it’s like for him and if you fail him he’s as good as dead.” He raises a second finger. “And I’m willing to bet you won’t fail me because Laxus would never forgive you if you separated us.” He holds up a third finger. “The only one who’s in danger is Evergreen and honestly she’s one of the best kunoichis in class it would make no sense if she failed and we didn’t.”

Kakashi sensei is quiet for a minute before he starts to laugh, “I guess we know the brains of the operation. But to be fair I won’t make it a cakewalk, it needs to be convincing.”

_ Bickslow is smarter than anyone at Fairy Tail will realize, we usually just let Freed take the lead though. _

“Fair enough” Laxus and Bickslow tell him as they head to the stairs.

“Oh, Laxus. Bickslow.” Kakashi sensei calls out to them. They turn to face their teacher, “Please tell your teammates to actually eat I was messing with you guys.” He then Shunshins away.

“I got Freed and you get Evergreen.”

“Yep, and after you’re staying over at my house.”

“I don’t want to intrude.”

“Laxus, you’re apartment sucks and I like it when you come over. Seriously you don’t need to stay there anymore.” Bickslow looks right into Laxus eyes when he tells him that.

Laxus smiles at his friend, “Thanks for the offer Bicks, I’ll think about it.” He offers. _“I really don’t want the civilians to start trashing your house though.”_

_ Talk to the Hokage, he will want to know this! Ugh, is this how gramps felt when I was little? I don’t like it. _

“Well, that’s the most I’ve gotten out of you in regards to that so I’ll take it,” Bickslow comments as they go to their teammate’s houses.

* * *

The Next Morning

* * *

“You know, we probably have a few hours before sensei gets here,” Laxus comments to his teammates as they arrive at the training ground.

Freed nods and pulls out some paper, ink, and a brush. Everyone watches as he starts writing in the neatest handwritten any of them has ever seen. They couldn’t read the words though.

_ Fairies fly through the sky, do they have tails. No one knows it’s a never-ending mystery. Of course, Freed can write something he shouldn’t even remember in a language no one here knows. _

Laxus and Bickslow start sparring as Evergreen starts to read the book she got. “Seriously Laxus, what kind of Taijutsu are you using? It looks like you’re a drunken brawler.” Freed comments as Bickslow lands another hit on Laxus.

“That’s what he based it on. Mizuki sensei would teach Laxus an incorrect version of the academy Taijutsu that’s actually worse than this, Shin tried to teach him another way but the council threatened to take away Shin’s medical funds.” Bickslow comments as he hits Laxus with a kick and then moves out of the way of a punch. “Laxus has refused ever since.”

They stop when Freed gets up and grabs Laxus’s arm, “You’re lean, so instead of going for slow strong attack go for faster ones.” He then starts to mess with Laxus’s stance so that he’s more balanced. “Is that better?”

“Yeah, thanks,” Laxus tells Freed as he shifts from one foot to another. “This is actually a lot more comfortable than either of the other stances.”

Freed snorts, “of course it is. You were unbalanced, and the only reason why you weren’t constantly being knocked down is probably that you just refuse to.”

And that’s how they spent the morning, sparring with each other, giving each other critics, and being friendly. If someone didn’t know better they would think they have been friends for years. Of course, they wouldn’t be wrong, but they weren’t right either.

Bonds that connect people are still there even when the memories are gone, so it was no surprise that the Thunder legion. A close-knit group in Fairy Tail. Would start getting along and start their old habits even in a different environment.

By the time Kakashi sensei had gotten there, he was three hours late. Laxus had gotten the hang of the stances Freed had taught him and was sparring well with Bickslow while Evergreen and Freed were looking into Fairies. “Ehem.”

“Hi sensei.” They all say distracted, still focusing on what they were doing.

Kakashi sensei just rolls eyes, “Morning everyone, ready for your first day?” He says this louder and something seems to click in his students.

“HEY, YOU’RE LATE!!” They all yell in unison, they had been there for hours already.

Kakashi's sensei eye smiles at them, “Well a black cat crossed my path, so I had to go the long way.” They all growl at him. “Well,” he clears his throat, “let’s get started.” He places a clock on a nearby stump. “Here we go its set for noon.” He activated the clock as his students look at him confused. “Your assignment is very simple; you just have to take these bells from me. If you can’t get them by noon you’ll go without lunch. You’ll be tied to those posts, and you’ll watch while I eat my lunch in front of you.”

_“It’s a good thing we all ate breakfast this morning.”_ Laxus thinks, “Wait, there are four of us. You only have two bells.” Evergreen brings up.

“Well, that way at least two of you will end up tied to a post and ultimately disqualified for failing to complete the mission. Not this test was originally for three people after all.” Kakashi's sensei eye smiles again as his students glare at him. “Anyway, those two go back to the academy. Then again, all three of you could flunk out, too. You can use any weapon including shuriken. If you’re not prepared to kill me you won’t be able to take the bells.”

_“Please go easy on us, you’re an Anbu Black ops we won’t be able to defeat you even together.”_ “When I say start you can begin.” Kakashi he lets them wait for a second, “get ready, and … start!” Laxus throws down a smoke bomb as the four disappear.

“Ninja must know how to conceal their movements and hide effectively.” Kakashi sensei announces.

‘Laxus’ is standing in the middle of the field with his arms crossed, he challenges Kakashi sensei while the real Laxus makes his way over to Bickslow. “Hey, Bicks.” Laxus whispers, surprising his friend.

He then signs “You know where Ever and Freed went?” Bickslow shakes his head and then watches Laxus’s shadow clones get their asses kicked.

“How long do you think they will last?” Bickslow signs back. _“Solid clones? I’ll ask him about this later.”_

Laxus shrugs, “Not long enough. Want to help me find our wayward teammates?”

“Were not going to be able beat him on our own,” Bickslow tells him and then winces as one of the Laxus clones gets a nasty hit.

They sneak through the foliage for a few minutes before Laxus stops and grumbles. “He got them all.”

“Do you think he figured it out?” Bickslow asks Laxus quietly.

Laxus remembers it being thrown in the water, Kakashi sensei turned to face the forest after he throws the clone, “No, he wasn’t looking when the last one dispelled.”

Bickslow raises his eyebrow like he was asking a silent question before Laxus could ask what was with him they heard a familiar-sounding scream. _“Evergreen”_

They quickly and quietly, which tended to clash at that moment, working their way over to where Evergreen was. Laxus was glad he got rid of his old clothes; it was so much easier to hide without the neon colors.

They see Evergreen sitting in the clearing breathing heavily tears rolling down her face and her hand had blood on it. Laxus and Bickslow come out into the clearing, “Evergreen! What happened are you ok?” Laxus quietly calls out. Though moments later they hear a fireball hit a tree.

Kakashi sensei must be fighting Freed at this point. Evergreen quickly stands up and hugs the two boys, whispering “you’re ok, thank Kami they’re ok.”

Bickslow and Laxus look at each other confused but opt to comfort Evergreen, “Yeah, we’re ok Evergreen. I don’t think Kakashi sensei would hurt us badly during the test.” Evergreen slowly stops shaking and lets them go. _“It must have been bad if she’s like this.” _The boys think.

“Sorry about that” Evergreen apologies, Laxus rolls his eyes, it’s okay to be upset. “Be careful around Kakashi sensei he can use Genjutsu. He showed me you three dying right in front of my eyes.”

_ He did WHAT to Ever, kick his ass kid. No one does that to my teammate, even if I am the only one who remembers the Thunder Legion. _

“Want to help kick his ass?” Laxus asks Evergreen smirks and fixes her glasses. _“How did those stay on?”_

_ Don’t question it, that’s just something Evergreen can do _

The sounds from the fight with Freed suddenly stops and the four of them head to another area to avoid being seen. “So, who wants to bet that Freed just got his ass handed to him by Kakashi Sensei?”

“That was in question Laxus?” Bickslow retorts as they start crawling towards where the sounds were. _“ugh, note to self, ask Shin about alternate ways to travel quietly.”_

They come up to a clearing, “no, so what do you think he actually wants us to do?” Laxus asks the other two genins.

“He wants us to work as a team.” They hear Freed say. Laxus looks to the left, right, and then down. Oh, He was on the ground. “Not a word.” _“Ugh, this is embarrassing.”_

Laxus raises his eye as he and Bickslow dig him out. “So, we all attack him at once,” Laxus suggests with a grin on his face.

“No, and you know this. We need a plan, how about you make a bunch of clones, while I fire off my Great Fireball Jutsu, Bickslow can set up traps around the area, and Evergreen can hit him with kunai and shuriken from above.” Freed looks at each of them while he tells them this.

The other three nods and set up to execute the plan, Kakashi sensei is just standing in a clearing no cares in the world. Once Bickslow had finished and Evergreen is in position, Freed gives Laxus the signal, he jumps down. “Hey Kakashi sensei, how about a rematch?_ Shadow Clone Jutsu!_”

Laxus makes dozens of shadow clones, Kakashi sensei just looks unimpressed. “We already did this Laxus; I don’t think you increasing the number of shadow clones will increase your chances of success.”

“You’re right.” Laxus admits; Kakashi sensei jumps and his eye widens_ “Laxus doesn’t admit that easily”_. “But that’s where the plan kicks in.”

“Plan?”

_“Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu!”_ Kakashi sensei jumps out of the way of the fireball, only for Evergreen to throw kunai and shuriken at the Jounin. He barely manages to avoid getting hit by the shuriken but gets hit by a Laxus clone, Bickslow joins in on the action throwing kunai and shuriken whenever he got close to the edge of the clearing. Then they hear a ringing sound. It was twelve.

Laxus disperses the clones; Evergreen, Freed, and Bickslow all come into the clearing. As Kakashi sensei dusted himself off. “Well, it looks like you all fail,” Laxus smirks; he throws a bell at Freed. “What how did you?” He looks at the ‘bells’ on his side. A poof and two clones appear and then disperse. “Well, then who’s getting sent back to the academy?”

“I’m sharing with Evergreen, and I’m assuming Laxus and Bickslow are sharing a bell. You didn’t say we couldn’t share Kakashi sensei.” Freed told him with a smirk.

_ Trust Freed to be sassy to someone who can kick his ass like I can to Dragneel. _

Kakashi, however, looked between shocked, proud, and constipated. “You can’t think it’s that easy.”

“We are a team, we have each other’s backs,” Bickslow tells him.

Freed picks up, “if we were to betray each other, we would be no better than” his brother was left unspoken.

“Well, then you” he pauses dramatically, “pass.”

They whoop, “A ninja must see through deception. In the ninja world, those who break the rules are scum. That’s true, but those who abandon their friends are worse than scum.” They look at him in awed shock; he knew they never expected that. “The exercise is over, everyone passes. Squad 7 starts its first mission tomorrow!”

They were now officially ninjas of the Leaf.

* * *

With Team Eight

* * *

Kurenai Yuhi saw potential when she saw Team 8, consisting of Lucy, Shino, and Elfman. Like the other Jounin, she had been tasked with determining whether or not her team had the potential to become an actual team of shinobi.

Lucy was an enigma; she had Byakugan but also had brown eyes and blond hair. If someone didn’t know better no one would think she’s a Hyuga. She’s the current heir of the Hyuga clan, currently the most powerful clan in Leaf; however, her adoptive father had labeled her as a failure due to her lack of skills and confident yet overly caring nature, as she doesn’t wish to hurt those she cares about. As such, her father, Hiashi, had assigned Kurenai to watch over Lucy since a few years ago while he shifted most of his attention to his younger adoptive daughter, Wendy. Kurenai wasn't too fond of the treatment Lucy had received at home and she was sure her father still cared for his daughter. However, clan politics had gotten in the way of what's best for Lucy. Kurenai took this as a challenge, determined to make Lucy into a kunoichi that the Hyuga clan would regret casting aside. It was for this sole reason that she would most likely pass her team, even before she tested them.

Kurenai found it ironic that Wendy was like her sister when it comes to violence, she's just able to hide it more.

Elfman was the adopted younger brother of the two children in the Inuzuka's main family. For years, the Inuzukas were renown through Leaf for producing some of the best hunter ninjas in the shinobi world. Their relationships with dogs made them ideal for tracking and their own senses were more beast-like as well. Elfman's own sense of smell was about 100x more powerful than humans, not nearly as strong as a dog’s. They’re still looking into whether or not he and Mira are related; it defiantly has positive effects on both clans. Elfman was able to graduate a year early, due to a combination of early-enrollment and assistance from Mira, who had a soft spot for him, and his older sisters.

Shino was the final member of her team. He was the clan heir to the Aburame clan. The Aburame were, in a sense, outcasted by some of the population of Leaf as they lived in symbiosis with insects, allowing the insects to live inside their own bodies. However, much of the shinobi population knew of the potential the Aburames possessed and as such, they had a great deal of respect for the clan. Shino's knowledge of the insect world and ability to make use of the faint chemical signals found in insect pheromones made him a valuable member in the team that was destined to become a great tracking team, if not the best.

Kurenai saw the potential in this team to be great. She would put very little effort into testing them as she was pretty much set on passing them the moment she was assigned this team.

* * *

With Team Ten

* * *

Asuma Sarutobi had been assigned to the clan heirs of the Yamanaka, Nara, and Akimichi clans, as per tradition. Mira, Shikamaru, and Chouji were the selected members of each clan who were destined to form the next generation of the Ino-Shika-Cho trio, Leaf's legendary combo rivaled only by the Raikage and his brother in terms of teamwork.

Mira even though her name isn't Ino was the best candidate she held the best potential and was the adopted daughter of the head clan leader. It helps that she is actually really motivated to become a good kunoichi and is willing to drag her teammates to become a good team.

Shikamaru, like the rest of the male populous in his clan, was extremely lazy yet possessed superior intelligence that was seen nowhere else. Shikamaru had immense potential, but he held himself back as it would be too much effort for him to care about much else.

Chouji was the final member of his team. Chouji was the heir of the Akimichi clan. The main problem with Chouji however, is that he cared more for food than shinobi training. Sadly, this was common in the Akimichi clan.

Asuma would likely pass this team as well without much evaluation. He knew the three of them were destined to work together, like the generations before them. All he had to do was to get them out of their own little worlds and start working together. Once that happened, his team would be a force to be reckoned with.

* * *

With the Hokage

* * *

Hirizen Sarutobi, gathered the Jonin instructors and listened to their reports. He thanked the gods that Kakashi passed his team, it would have been so much paperwork to clean up the Jonin’s corpse. Not to mention Laxus would be in actual trouble if he failed. After he listens to all the reports, he barely avoided smiling at the shocked look on the other Jounin’s faces when they heard his team passed. He notes that he has to talk to Laxus after this. Laxus probably guessed that Laxus knew that Kakashi was Dog.

Kakashi waits for him after the meeting, Hirizen feels like he loses some of the few remaining years of his life. _“Why did you tell Bickslow, Laxus? That’s not information you should give out. I told you this.”_ This year’s graduates were certainly interesting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to mention that I’m going to focus on the teams with Fairytail, a quick rebrief without spoilers for future chapters. Team Seven is Kakashi, Laxus, Freed, Bickslow, and Evergreen. Team Eight is Kurenai, Lucy, Elfman, and Shino. Team Ten is Mira, Shikamaru, and Chouji. There are more Fairy Tail members but they will be introduced later. As for the adoption into major clans, I’ll explain later why/how they replaced the Naruto counter-parts.  
I hope you all enjoyed, reviews and comments would be greatly appreciated.


	3. Training, sensei optional

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We watch Team 7's first month of being Shinobi with other guest appearances of the other teams. Kakashi may not be willing to teach them Jutsu's but someone else sure is. They also learn some important lessons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is Team Seven’s first two months as ninjas. I am going to have Kakashi train them on more than teamwork. As for why they get along well, they are not Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke, and Sai. Their core personalities still exist, so do their old bonds. They may not know one another, but they ‘know’ one another. Yes, I’m going the, their subconscious remember they’re friends, friendship ex Machina, whatever my story my rules. Kakashi won’t need to teach them teamwork, but he’s also a lazy asshole. I’m not getting into that argument. Kakashi is going to be teaching them the tree walking and water walking earlier aka before the C to A-rank mission. Honestly in Canon, Kakashi had to know Naruto’s chakra control was his main problem. But no, let them fight the deadly A-rank Mist ninja with only basic academy techniques and being able to walk on trees. That will be soooo useful to avoid being cut in half by a bloodthirsty ninja who slaughtered his own graduation class. Don’t even get me started on why he should have nipped Sakura’s fangirl habits in the bud, he could have at least asked Kurenai to do so. She probably hates fangirls. Anyway, I’m done ranting now to the story.

Laxus woke up at Bickslow’s house early, so while his friend was still asleep he decided to make the two of them breakfast as Shin was still in the hospital. He counts himself lucky that Shin was able to teach both of them how to make a simple breakfast. By the time Bickslow had fully woken up, he already finished making the rice and miso soup and was already half-way done Bickslow’s omelet. “Damn Laxus what’s the occasion?”

_“I became Hokage.”_ Laxus thinks sarcastically “We’re finally ninja’s Bicks; I figured we should celebrate a little.” Laxus tells his friend as he finishes off his friend's omelet and starts his own.

Bickslow grabs his food and sits in front of Laxus, “We should celebrate more often then, you’re great at cooking.” Bickslow tells him and then takes shoves some of the omelet in his mouth. _“So good!”_

“I know how to make five things tops,” Laxus argues as he finishes making his omelet and then his food. _“I swear you only say that so I keep making you breakfast.”_ He starts eating his food, but then pauses, “Kakashi sensei is going to be late today.”

“Most likely” Bickslow agrees. _“This is really good Laxus stop being modest.”_

Laxus rolls his eyes, “so what should we do while we wait for our teacher?”

“Train, you’re Taijutsu is getting better. But Freed could give you some more pointers.” Bickslow suggests to his friend. “I can go to the library to look at some Jutsu we can use. They should let us in now that we’re genin.”

Laxus rolls his eyes; he wouldn’t be surprised if they still didn’t let him through. He knew he could count on Bickslow; he always could count on his best friend.

_ You know what to do kid and I know you can trust them _

“I- I need to tell you something Bicks.” Laxus croaks, he was scared. _“I can’t lose my only friend.”_

Bickslow looked at Laxus confused, “Tell me what?” _“Was it what happened with Mizuki, did he do something to him?”_

“You know how people in the village hate me.” Laxus starts off.

Bickslow responds sarcastically, “You know how I’m a boy.” Laxus rolls his eyes, _“A rock can tell how people in the village hate you.”_

A door opens and closes but neither of them notices it.

“Ihavetheninetailssealedinsideme” Laxus tells Bickslow quickly, the sound of a bag hitting the ground startle both of the genins.

Shin had just gotten home, and instead of a greeting, he sees Laxus telling Bickslow an S-rank secret. _“What did I miss in the day? Twenty-four hours and I missed so much.”_

Laxus looked at Shin worried, and he tried not to let that sting. “So, we’re talking about that.”

“You got what Laxus just said?” Bickslow exclaims as he looks between his brother and best friend.

Shin sits down, “Bickslow, what Laxus was about to tell you is an S-rank secret. While I doubt you would, I need to tell you cannot tell anyone else about what we’re going to talk about.” Bickslow looks confused, but nods.

“I-I found out two days ago,” Laxus starts off nervously before closing his eyes and blurting the rest out, “I have the nine tails sealed inside me.”

Bickslow was quiet, that’s never a good sign. “Who did that to you?” Laxus’s eyes snap open as he looks at him. Bickslow was seething, but it wasn’t at him. “Why would they sealed that thing in you and then leave you to suffer!” _“This is why my best friend suffers because people are fucking morons and think he’s a demon?”_

“I-I don’t know, you don’t.” Laxus starts crying and he couldn’t stop. No matter how hard he tried, he was so scared but it was for nothing because it’s Bickslow. _“I need to stop being such a kid, I’m a ninja now.”_

_ You’re thirteen, doesn’t matter if you’re a ninja. You’re a kid; kids can’t control their emotions well. And that was a lot to trust with someone, even someone you knew for years. Damn, I’m sound like gramps. _

Bickslow and Shin get up and over to Laxus, they hug him and he starts crying more. “I’m sorry, I can’t” It takes Laxus a couple of minutes to calm down; he didn’t realize they had herded him to the couch. And he was sitting down, wow he was a mess. “We’re going to be late Bicks.” He doesn’t move. “Bicks, I want to go to training.”

“Who do you have as a teacher?” Shin asks the two boys. _“Please let it not be who I think it is.”_

Laxus laughs nervously, “Kakashi Hatake.”

“Oh,” Shin says plainly _“Yeah, they’re going to need some help”_, “I’m coming with you.” They head on their way; Laxus doesn’t notice that Bickslow and Shin are flanking him the entire way.

Freed and Evergreen are already there, but one look at Laxus’s face and Shin, who they haven’t met yet. “Please tell me we got a new sensei that will actually show up on time?”

“No, but I will teach you guys how to survive outside the village,” Shin tells the surprisingly friendly Uchiha, though his last name was Justine, he had heard Freed was rather abrasive.

They looked like their prayers have been answered, “We’ll take it.” They cry out at the same time, _“I need to talk to Kakashi about this; his students should not have this opinion about him. It’s their second day, though that does explain Freed’s reaction.”_

“Alright, so what I’m going to teach you guys will prevent you from dying from dehydration. Water Style: Water condensation _Jutsu._” A small amount of water appears in front of Shin and falls to the ground. “You can also use it to saturate the air with mist; these can help hide you from the Byakugon and Sharingan. But for now, just focus on making some water.”

Freed looked interested and immediately started, “Water Style: Water Condensation Jutsu” A small trickle of water appeared in front of him.

“It looks like you used too little Freed.” He comments to the genin as he turns to Laxus, “How about you try Laxus.” _“What’s the worst that can happen from overloading this technique?”_

Laxus nods and goes through the hand signs and being so excited put almost all the chakra he had into the Jutsu, “Water Style: Water Condensation Jutsu” 

_ Nothing good is going to come from this. _

Nothing appears in front of Laxus, but suddenly the ground is dark. The shinobi all at once look up at a giant ball of water in the sky above. _”Oh that’s the worst that can happen if Laxus overloads the Jutsu.”_ He scoops up Evergreen and Freed, Bickslow jumps on his back and he goes over to Laxus.

“Release the technique and jump onto me.” Laxus look right at Shin and does exactly what he said. Then Shin runs like hell, he almost doesn’t clear the water but manages to pull off a shunshin at the last second.

_ One of these days I’m going to figure out how they do that, mark my words. Stop laughing fuzz ball! _

The training ground was flooded; the trees were stripped bare of leaves and bark. The grass was crushed. The group looked at the training ground in shock. They all slowly turn to look at Laxus, whose eyes were wide and his mouth was slightly open. An Anbu black opt shows up out of breath. “What happened here?” Their voice sounded shocked.

“Laxus,” They all say at once. The Anbu nods as if that answered everything. Kakashi arrives with the Hokage who looks shocked at the condition of the training ground.

_ Wow, way to throw him under the magic mobile. _

They look at the genin, still clinging to Shin. “I’ll find another training ground for you all; Laxus please don’t do that again.” The Hokage tells them as he heads back to his office, leaving with the Anbu black ops. Kakashi looks at his students in shock.

“What happened? Is everyone ok?” Kakashi asks them, his voice was slightly panicked. In any other situation, they would feel touched.

_ …My dad would never have been worried like that. _

They were just tired. Everyone confirms that they’re ok. “Good,” Kakashi tells them relieved, “Shin, I just got this team please don’t murder them.”

“Wasn’t my intention Kakashi. I am fond of my little brother and his best friend.” Shin tells the Jounin as he sets the children he was still holding on the ground.

Kakashi glances at the destroyed training ground, “what were you guys doing?”_  
“I didn’t think there were any Jutsus that would be taught to freshly minted Genin that would cause this much destruction_.”

“Water Condensation Jutsu.” Shin tells Kakashi with a straight face, Kakashi’s eye widens, “Laxus overloaded it by a lot.” Laxus laughs nervously. “When trying a new Jutsu, let’s start with the smallest amount you can.” Laxus nods in agreement.

Evergreen and Freed look horrified and Bickslow’s laughing his ass off. Laxus elbows him, but he just laughs louder. “Bicks stop.” Laxus hissed embarrassed, he slowly turns red.

“Well, at least Laxus knows how to destroy a large amount of area, relatively easily.” Kakashi ribs and Laxus sighs before slightly swaying. “Laxus are you o—“

Bickslow catches Laxus before he falls to the ground now panting, the adrenaline wearing off from the near-death experience he feels just how much chakra he put into the technique. _“He put almost all of his chakra into the technique, talk about going overboard.”_

“I think Laxus should rest for a bit while the rest of you train.” Kakashi tells the group when Laxus opens his mouth to argue Kakashi adds, “After resting for about an hour all of you can train your team building, you used too much chakra and running out is nothing to laugh at.”

“What’s do you mean?” Laxus and Bickslow ask simultaneously.

Shin looks at Kakashi amused, “If you try to use a Jutsu without having the chakra to use it won’t work if you keep pushing it you can either disable yourself or kill yourself.”

_ Damn, so there is a drawback to chakra, it’s more versatile but there’s also more of a limit and not as flexible. _

“Well shit,” Laxus mutters as he lies down on the ground within minutes he passes out._ “Wow, he’s out like a light.” _Evergreen and Freed think as they go back to training.

_“Note to self, if we need Laxus to sleep, train him to exhaustion.” _Kakashi and Shin think as they move the boy away from the others. Kakashi was planning on doing training exercises with his team, but that was out the window thanks to Laxus being exhausted.

Shin tells Bickslow to be careful and heads back to his house.

* * *

Laxus wakes up an hour later and the team starts working on team-building exercises, to their dismay. They had to throw a ball back and forth. Bickslow nailed Laxus hard one of the times; Laxus took a few minutes to calm Bickslow down, mostly because he was chuckling. Then guiding people blindfolded, Laxus and Bickslow do well but Evergreen and Freed have difficulty due to Freed not talking much and Evergreen yelled at him for it.

The other boys watching felt bad for him but decided they didn’t want her wrath.

Kakashi sighed at his team’s progress, maybe a mission would help? He suddenly gets a brilliant idea, he knew exactly which mission would be good as a first mission and would help build teamwork.

* * *

“Is everyone in position?” Kakashi called out through the wireless radios his team was wearing.

“I’m ready” Evergreen calls out.

Freed says “I’m in position.”

“I’m here” Laxus replies.

“In position,” Bickslow says.

_ This is over the top _

Kakashi asks, “Alright, where’s the target.”

“Alright, on my mark”, he pauses dramatically, “go.”

_ Drama queen..king whatever _

With that, the four newly minted genin dove forward on their target. Laxus came up the one to catch it, although he was wishing he hadn’t. Bickslow tries to take the cat that was attacking off of Laxus face. In the end, Bickslow and Freed had to pull the cat off of Laxus’s face and hands her to Ever.

_ Good call, Evergreen is really good with animals. _

Their target was known around the village as Tora, the Fire Daimyo’s Wife’s pet and the Demon Cat of the Leaf. Team 7 reported that they had caught the intended cat, indicating that it had a pink ribbon in its ear.

_ That thing looks worse than most of the demons in Fiore. _

They quickly made their way back to the Leaf mission hall and Laxus was relieved and they couldn’t get rid of the cat any sooner. They were worried that Tora would make another lunge at Laxus, by the time Tora was back in the suffocating arms of its owner. Laxus’s face looked like it had just been put through a blender. Kakashi called that enough for the day, citing Laxus’s health as an excuse to dismiss his team for the day and to read his book.

Bickslow heads back home with his brother to patch Laxus up, he ends up with bandages nearly covered his entire face. Before leaving Iruka, who had been stationed to give out missions that day, asked Laxus if he wanted to get ramen, “Yeah, sure thing Iruka sensei.” The trip over was the same as always, the villagers glare at him as he walks down the street. When he gets there he orders Iruka sensei and his usual. Iruka sensei arrives a few minutes later, “Hey Laxus! Sorry, I’m a bit late; I had to talk to the Hokage real quick.”

“No problem sensei, the food should be done soon,” Laxus tells his previous teacher as he sits down.

“So how was your first day of being a ninja?” Iruka inquires.

Laxus rubs where the bandages from the scratch marks are and winces. “You know, I thought it would be better, but Kakashi-sensei seems to want to be late and do teamwork exercises, and then there was THAT mission.” He gestures to his face, “My face still hurts.”

“Ah yes, the infamous Capture Tora mission,” Iruka says with no small amount of sympathy.

_ …Has this mission has been going on for a while? _

Laxus looks right at Iruka sensei with surprise, “Wait did you do that mission too?” he asks.

Iruka sensei visibly cringes as he recalls the memory of the cat. “Yeah, that cat has a history of getting away from its owner.”

Laxus laughs, “I can see why that lady was practically suffocating the cat. Serves it right.”

“Now Laxus, be nice. That lady is the wife of the Fire Daimyo and you won’t believe how much money that cat brings into the village.” Iruka scolds the boy.

Laxus give Iruka a confused look, “I taught this in class Laxus, people hire a ninja to do tasks ranging from D-rank to S-rank. We assign teams to these missions based on the assigned ranking and the clients pay us a commission. Out of the commission, you and your team get a certain amount of it. The village then takes its cut, and the price depends on multiple factors, but mostly length and the assigned ranking.

You’re a genin who just started so you will only be doing D rank mission and after a while, you’ll get a C-rank mission. Eventually, you’ll be able to do higher rank missions, just be patient it will get better soon enough.”

Laxus perks up, “Right, they all can’t be as bad as catching that damn cat. Just you watch, I’ll be kicking ass in no time.”

* * *

One Month Later

* * *

Laxus was walking back to his apartment after their daily training session; his current schedule consisted of actual training for two hours while they wait for Kakashi. Mostly they train with the techniques Shin and Iruka taught them. Apparently, they were supposed to be taught these techniques in the Academy but it was removed for the civilians. Sometimes it was Taijutsu, Freed was an excellent teacher. When Kakashi finally shows up it alternated between missions some days and ‘training’ other days. Then they have a free day in general that happens every other week.

Now this alone didn’t sound terr— what were they kidding, they needed to talk to two other shinobi for training because their teacher is obsessed with team building and the missions just suck. The missions were chores or the cat. Sometimes it was even people who hated his guts; Laxus spent most of those missions as far from the client as possible with Bickslow, the two of them watching the client like hawks.

The training was even worse they made more progress training themselves without Kakashi there, and when he finally showed up he made them do team-building exercises. They went well, for a little bit. However, after a couple of minutes, someone would walk into a tree or river. The entire exercise would be derailed from there; there had been a couple of fights that Kakashi actually had to break up.

* * *

Freed was inclined to agree with his teammates on how annoying the ‘training’ and missions are right now. The menial tasks were getting on his nerves; he couldn’t get stronger with these general labor tasks. It would be so much faster if he could just do it himself or if Kakashi lets Laxus use his Shadow Clone Jutsu. Then he could actually get some good training those afternoons, he would never admit that he actually enjoys helping his teammates in the morning.

It’s not even the missions or ‘training’ that always fails that’s the worst part. No, the worse part was the fangirls. Ever since the academy, he’s hated them. They did nothing but fawn left and right over him, coming up with ridiculous excuses to try to capture his attention. In fact, he was told by an anonymous source that they had even gone as far as to grow all of their hair because they heard that he liked girls with long hair.

All the fangirls did was proving to be an unavoidable obstacle for him, if it wasn’t for a random fangirl’s coughSakuracough nagging, he wouldn’t have dropped Laxus into the creek. He was glaring at Freed for the rest of the day, Laxus actually looked almost scary when he glared.

Maybe it was the scar. How did he get that anyway?

In reality, he couldn’t care less; he really didn’t want to think about That yet. Freed knew one day he would find a girl (or girls if the village forced the CRA on him) he shudders at that thought. However, he wanted a girl who could think on her feet, was strong and smart. A girl that’s stubborn and will stand up to him, not a brainless fangirl who practically worshiped the very ground he stood on. A girl who he could trust and tell him he was wrong when he was. He wanted someone like Mira who didn’t care if he was an Uchiha. Freed shakes his head, _“She’s my friend; we have been friends since we were kid, I shouldn’t like her like that. I don’t want her to deal with jealous fangirls or make her uncomfortable anyway.”_

* * *

Evergreen was conflicted when it came to these missions, on one hand, Mira made it seem like it would be really dangerous to be a ninja but so far it was just boring. That was the other problem, it was boring. The only interesting thing they’ve done is training in the morning. Honestly, why weren’t they taught these in the Academy it would have been useful in the fight against Kakashi sensei. She would see some of their clients and the civilians glare at Laxus like he was the source of all their problems _“Why do the villagers look at him like that though?”_

For as long as she could remember she lived alone, while something told her it wasn’t always the case.

Something else told her that was a good thing.

So she lived alone, more often than not Mira would visit her, Evergreen wondered if she should tell Freed about Mira’s feelings about him, but shrugged it off. Those two were so obvious that Laxus picked up on it already. She was glad that she wasn’t imminently thrown into a threatening situation but it was so boring.

Mira’s dad was the clan head, and he also worked in T&I. Evergreen really needed to get the story on why Laxus had gone there and how he had to meet Anko or the crazy snake lady. Mira’s dad almost choked from laughter when he clarified that her name was Anko and to never call her crazy snake lady to her face.

Like her teammates, she wants something more challenging, but in the meanwhile, she’s going to scheme just like she knows Mira is going to do to her. _“Elfman is nice Mira, there’s nothing more between us. Stop shipping us.”_

* * *

“It’s so boooring Shin” Bickslow complains to his older brother. Shin was again in the hospital, he was giving his little brother a fond look.

Bickslow fails to get out of the way of his brother’s hand as it tousles is hair, Bickslow complains “Shiinn!”

“They’re not going to throw you into a life-threatening situation right off the bat, be patient Bicks. Your moment will come soon.” Shin’s amusement was obvious to Bickslow, and while he doesn’t appreciate being the butt of the joke. He’s glad his brother is happy.

They sit in the silence for a few minutes, “Do you remember how we meet Laxus?” Bickslow asks.

“Of course” Shin answers and chuckles, “He literally managed to run into us while running away from an angry bear.” He tilts his head, “What brought this on Bickslow?”

Bickslow smiles at Shin, “The day is coming up… You don’t think—”

“The Third Hokage is very fond of Laxus” Bickslow couldn’t agree more, “Do you really think that he would let Danzo take us when it would very much traumatize if not turn Laxus away from the village.”

Bickslow slowly nods, “Yeah you’re right.”

“Of course, I’m right. Who’s the older brother here?”

Bickslow groans and leans back into his chair. “Shhiiinn”

“Now as your brother I must embarrass you, so any girlfriend yet?”

“Ssstttoooppp!!”

* * *

**Two Weeks Later**

* * *

Laxus finished up dinner one night after yet another day of D-ranks. It has been six weeks since graduation and he was getting sick of the current program. Kakashi sensei is still insisting on team-building exercises and he’s added some physical conditioning. Yet, Kakashi still wouldn’t teach them anything ninja-like.

Coming out of Ichiraku, receiving some of the typical glares from the village, he spotted someone he hadn’t seen since the academy. It took him a few minutes to remember who she was exactly, but then he remembered. She was Lucy, he remembered that’s she actually nice and for some reason really nervous about a lot of things. She was essentially the opposite of everyone in the class. She was one of the three girls that didn’t fawn over Freed. She was also one of the few people that had never been cruel to him.

_ Hearfillia sounds familiar I don’t remember how though. _

Looking back on his time in the academy none of the clan head kids were cruel to him, they didn’t particularly like him though. Laxus hadn’t seen anyone else, besides Evergreen, Bickslow, and Freed since the academy. Er, wait he saw Chouji and Shikamaru chasing after that damned cat.

_ That was kinda funny, I don’t envy them though. _

“Hey, Lucy!” Laxus calls out. He wanted to talk to someone from his class other than his teammates. Besides, Iruka sensei and Shin keep telling him he needs more friends anyway.

Lucy froze at someone calling her name from behind her, “Hey, L-laxus” She stuttered, nervous talking to someone else from her class. She was glad that she could talk to him; he was always nice to her.

“Hey, you still have your headband!” Laxus exclaimed excitedly as he notices the forehead protector around her neck. Besides his own team and Team 01, Laxus didn’t know who passed. Kakashi said there were three teams that graduated from his class, but he didn’t know who the other team was. “That means your team passed the genin exam!”

“Y-yes we did, Laxus. I-I’m glad to see you did as well.” Replied Lucy who stuttered a little.

_ Huh, where were you when he was a kid. _

Laxus smiles a little, “you did?” That was actually nice to know “Thanks, I’m glad you passed as well. Everyone in your family must be proud of you.”

Lucy really wished he hadn’t brought her family into this, but she did appreciate the support. She looked down and caught Laxus’s attention. “What’s wrong Lucy?”

“N-nothing, my father has always been strict and well, I-I’m afraid I’ll disappoint him,” Lucy told him.

_ I remember being like that. _

Now if there was one thing he knew, it was being a disappointment. For most of his life, he had been just that…a disappointment. However, through experience, he learned you’re only a disappointment if you just give.

He also feels like someone told him that before but he can’t really remember who.

_ Gramps told me that, I never really believed him. My dad always said the opposite though. _

Laxus knew if you just keep trying your absolute hardest there is no way you could disappoint someone, he proved this when he mastered the Shadow Clone Jutsu with Iruka sensei and finally graduated. “Don’t worry. All you have to do is your best. If you do that, you’ll never disappoint anyone!” Laxus tells her confidently and with a smile. It worked like a charm, Lucy’s spirits up.

It was around that time another man came onto the scene. “Lady Lucy, let’s go, you shouldn’t associate with that thing.” Said the man; he had pale eyes with no pupils, he was a Hyuga.

“But…” Lucy tried to protest.

“No Lady Lucy, he’s not right. You can’t believe anything he says” The Hyuga tells her as he took Lucy away. Laxus looks down and grips his arms. He was used to this. He was used to adults grabbing children and dragging them away from him. He knew why now, he didn’t understand why though.

_ People are stupid when they’re scared or angry. Anything related to the Nine-Tails will result in hate, that’s how people are. I heard that’s how people treated Mira before she joined Fairy Tail. _

Lucy looked distressed, “But, he told me to not give up and do my best. What’s so bad about that?” Lucy asks.

The Hyuga stopped in his tracks, turning around to see Laxus walking away, head down arms gripping each other. The man could easily read people and in Laxus he was sadness and loneliness. _“He looks familiar now that I think about it.”_ He ignores the familiar feeling. He hadn’t seen the sadness and loneliness before, probably blinded by the nine tails thing. After what Lucy told him, he looked closer at the boy…perhaps he was wrong about him. This boy was trying to encourage Lucy,

Perhaps he wasn’t the demon the entire village saw him as.

A group of men came walking past the duo, obviously coming from the bar. “Hey! It’s that Thing!” one of the drunks exclaimed quietly to the rest so Laxus wouldn’t hear. The boy had already stiffened. The other men picked up various objects lying around the street and alleys.

They tried to sneak up on the boy slowly walking away from them; ready to beat him up as the other villagers just watch. Most of them were hoping the men would get a good smack to two before some of the ANBU intervened. It was one of the most entertaining things in the village.

Laxus had barely heard them sneaking up behind him and was preparing to run like hell. It was a good thing his hearing was so good, he would be dead at this point if he wasn’t. He glances behind him and sees that yes, running is a very good idea. He sprints and gets halfway down the street before he realizes he wasn’t being pursued. He turned around and sees the men unconscious on the ground and the Hyuga man, holding Lucy’s hand, standing over the unconscious drunks. He was obviously the one who knocked them out.

_ What? I thought he didn’t like you? _

Lucy was surprised that her caretaker had actually helped Laxus; he always did everything he could to keep her away from Laxus. He slowly walks over to the duo with caution, he wasn’t sure if it was a trick. “Honestly, I don’t really see why they hate you so much. Anyone who’s so nice to Lady Lucy can’t be that bad.”

_ Huh, well that’s defiantly something. Well, I think you just made a friend. _

“Thank you for your help back Mr…” Laxus replies, not sure of the man’s name.

The man smiles, “My name is Ko and I’m pleased to make your acquaintance Laxus Dreyar.” Ko tells him, she wonders if Ko would let her talk to Laxus from now on. “Now I do apologize, but Lady Lucy’s father is expecting her home soon. Perhaps we will see each other sometime.

Ko’s last remark encouraged Lucy that perhaps he wouldn’t try to force her away from Laxus.

* * *

Laxus, Bickslow, Freed, and Evergreen showed up at the training grounds the following morning at 9:00. Kakashi had told them to meet up at 9:00 am, but they had already gotten into the routine that Kakashi was going to be at least two hours late. So they train while waiting for him.

Just after 11:00 am, Kakashi finally showed. "You're late!" Laxus shouted as his teammates’ glare at their teacher.

_ This is getting old. _

"Good morning. Sorry I'm late, but there was this little old lady and..." Kakashi stopped as he saw Evergreen getting angry with him. "Anyways, I'm here, so who's ready for some wonderful team-building exercises?"

As soon as he mentioned it, all four members of Team 7 looked at Kakashi with an impressive amount of killing intent for a genin team. They had all just about had it with these exercises, "We don't any more teambuilding exercises! We've been doing those for over a month!" shouted Laxus. "I think it's about time that you finally teach us a ninja technique or something, right guys?" Laxus looked to Freed, Bickslow, and Evergreen for support and surprisingly, he got it.

_ What are teams for kid, they support each other. _

"He’s right and you know it, Kakashi-sensei. Those teambuilding exercises of yours aren't getting us anywhere. If we want a more challenging mission we need to learn something more." said Freed. Kakashi was feeling slightly insulted that they were attacking his teambuilding exercises.

Kakashi sighed. He was wondering when this day would come, he did know Laxus it was going to come sooner rather than later. "Alright, I suppose we've done enough of those exercises for now," said Kakashi in defeat. "I suppose it's time we work on your guys' chakra control."

_ What? Didn’t they just spend years learning that? _

"Why do we have to do that? We spent the last four years learning how to control chakra?!" Laxus blurted out. "We get our first real training session. Now, why can't you teach us a cool new Jutsu or something like Shin and Iruka?"

"Laxus, chakra control is very important. Without the proper control, you would never be able to master anything above a D-rank Jutsu" Evergreen tells him annoyed.

"Evergreen's right Laxus," Kakashi said. "If you hope to be able to learn a cool Jutsu, you must learn how to control the flow and release of chakra. The lessons you learned in the academy are basic, but they are not enough. That’s why the incident happened"

They all laugh nervously as they remember the Water Style: Water condensation Jutsu incident. "Fine, it beats catching that damned cat anyways. I wonder what sort of demon that cat came from anyways," said Laxus.

Somewhere in the hidden cloud village, a young woman with blonde hair felt the urge to sneeze.

As if scripted perfectly, said cat came running out of the trees with a genin team in pursuit. Unfortunately for Laxus, Tora remembered him from the last time Team 7 was assigned to capture her and proceeded to claw Laxus in the face before darting off into the woods.

_ What the hell is wrong with that cat? _

"I swear that the village makes more off of that cat than all the other D and C-ranks combined," said Kakashi quietly. "Anyways, today we'll be working on the first of the regular chakra control exercises, the tree-climbing exercise."

_ What, how does tree climbing have to do with chakra control? _

"Tree climbing?" Evergreen questions while the others looked on with a bit of curiosity.

"Yes, it's the first exercise in chakra control. The idea is to hold a constant chakra at the bottom of your feet and use it to stick to a surface, in particular, the side of a tree, while you walk up it" Kakashi explained. He further instructed the genin in that exercise and they each proceeded to a tree. Laxus and Freed took a few steps up the tree before falling to the ground. Bickslow was able to get over halfway up the first time. Evergreen had managed to climb the entire tree with little effort. Kakashi noted that her control was the best of the group. They were instructed to work on that exercise for the remainder of the day until they could climb the entire tree. After that, they were to exhaust their chakra as they continued to refine the technique.

* * *

Kurenai had begun teaching her students chakra control exercises much earlier than either Kakashi or Asuma. Her team had no issues with working with each other, Lucy and Shino were a bit too quiet though, but they didn’t require much effort getting the three of them to work together.

As such, she had started actually training with them only a week or two out of the academy. Asuma wasn’t that much more behind her, though he wanted to work on teamwork longer. Mira was the driving force of Asuma training his team, AKA she went to talk to Kurenai who talked with Asuma.

Later they would talk fondly about the time in the middle of a teambuilding exercise they watched Asuma get chewed out by Kurenai.

* * *

**A Couple of Hours Later**

* * *

It was getting late, Bickslow and Evergreen had already called it a night, as they didn’t have anywhere near the chakra reserve that Freed, let alone Laxus, had. However, they completed their training much faster, with Evergreen taking two hours and Bickslow taking three. They had stayed a little longer to give the duo tips, but it didn’t help much.

Freed and Laxus were locked in a competition to see who could reach the top first, the first day ends with both of them two-thirds up the tree. Laxus and Freed were later found that night being taken over to Bickslow’s house by Bickslow and his brother. Witnesses say they heard them grumble about them stubborn assholes.

The following day was a mission day for them filled with more ‘exciting’ D-ranks. It was obvious that Laxus and Freed were getting irritated at having to do those. By the second day of their training, the two boys of Team 7 had managed to make it up to the top of the tree. Freed had been the first to reach the top, although he noted that Laxus was not far behind, making it to the top the next attempt. The three of them were instructed to refine the exercise for the remainder of the training days that week until they had it down perfectly. They even used their free day to dedicate to the training.

* * *

"Alright, Team 7. For your next mission, you can either babysit an elder's grandson, shop in the neighboring village, or..." the Hokage was cut off by someone entering the room and whispering something in the Hokage's ear. "Well, it appears Tora has escaped again."

Team 7 shuttered at the thought of having to catch that cat again. "No!" Laxus shouted out. "No catching Tora mission, that thing hates me! Can’t we get a C-rank mission?” Surprisingly, his team agrees with him.

_"I thought it was about time for this"_ Kakashi thought to himself.

"Idiots, you're just rookies!" Iruka shouted, his head growing to 5 times its original size as he used his Big Head no Jutsu. "Everyone starts off at the bottom and works their way up!"

"But we keep getting the crappiest duties!" Laxus responded. The Hokage sighed. "We've been doing menial tasks for the past two months. Why can’t we have something more challenging?”

"Laxus, it seems I have to explain to you what these duties are about," the Third said. "Every day, the village receives requests, from babysitting to assassinations. Each request is written down and given a rank of D, C, B, or A. These missions are handed out to ninja based on their experience. If the duty is completed, the village receives payment from the client. You just recently became genins, so D-ranks is perfect for you." Laxus was discussing with his team on how they’ve improved. It was then that the Hokage flipped out, and Kakashi knew he was going to get it later.

"But, if you must," the Hokage said. Team 7 diverted their attention to the old Hokage. "I'll give you a C-rank mission." Laxus was ecstatic, Freed, Bickslow, and Evergreen were pleasantly surprised, and Kakashi was in disbelief. "You will be acting as bodyguards for a certain individual as they travel to the Land of Waves."

"Who is it?! A Feudal Lord? A princess?" Laxus shouted out.

The door opened, and in walked a slightly drunken looking man. "Eh? You're giving me these brats? Hey you, the short dumbass with the scar on your face, are you really a ninja?" the man asked.

Laxus was quiet, Bickslow’s eyes widen as he backs Evergreen and Freed away. Laxus tried to charge the man, screaming like a banshee with a kunai in his hand only to be held back by Kakashi. “I’m going to stab his eyes out!”

The old man goes to hide behind Iruka who had gone over to Laxus to calm him down. “He wasn’t trying to insult you—“

“He was absolutely insulting me! Let me kill him!” Laxus screams.

“Laxus no, that’s the client.”

“Laxus yes!”

Everyone but the old man yell. “Laxus NO!” Laxus calms down but still glares at the old man. He soon regains his composure.

"I am the super expert bridge builder Tazuna. I expect protection until I get back to my country and complete my bridge" the old man said. With that, the team departed the village a few hours later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please review/comment.  
I was going to post this yesterday/this morning but AO3 had to keep crashing before I could save for the night so I am actually posting this not sleep deprived. Anyway, college is a pain in my ass and I'll work on getting my stories updated a little more regularly.


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